by Kat Dunn
‘Except that it’s never as simple as that,’ cut in Al. ‘You can’t just write “we’re all equal” on a bit of paper and expect everything to be okay. People are selfish and short-sighted and don’t know how to change.’ He wiped the last of his pottage with a crust of bread. ‘I think it really went downhill when they chopped the king and queen’s heads off. The Revolutionaries didn’t know what to do with themselves once they’d killed the bogeyman. So they started turning on each other. Then that despot Robespierre got involved and we’ve been heading for disaster ever since.’
Camille reached for her wine glass and cradled it between her hands. ‘He said the executions were to stop civil war. To protect the Revolution.’
Ada laid her hand on Camille’s knee. ‘You don’t have to talk about them…’
Camille shook her head. ‘No, it’s okay. I won’t hide what happened.’
She drained her glass then turned to Olympe, her eyes flashing. ‘I believed in the Revolution. So did my parents. But then the people they called their friends turned on them and they ended up being executed as traitors. I nearly went with them, but I was acquitted at my trial. The judges called me a naive girl being led by her misguided parents.’ Camille leaned in, the flickering candlelight casting shadows across her face. ‘Do you know what Robespierre calls it – this indiscriminate killing of anyone who might be a threat? La Terreur. The Terror. Violence as a virtue, delivering speedy, severe and inflexible justice. To protect us.’
Olympe’s frown grew deeper and deeper as they spoke. When Camille had finished, she stayed silent for a moment, as if turning things over in her mind. The waiter appeared again, setting a fresh pot of coffee and a dish of biscuits on the table and clearing away the empty plates.
‘You said these people who supported the murdered king, these Royalists, they hired you to kidnap me?’
‘Rescue you,’ said Camille. ‘But I suppose kidnap is more accurate.’
‘And … that is your job? Forgive me for finding it hard to trust you. I am very grateful to be out of that awful place, but I would be a fool to trust you so easily.’
‘We’re hired to do risky or difficult work that it would be … tricky to employ someone to do openly,’ explained Ada.
‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘She’s being far too demure,’ said Al. ‘We’re noble heroes, rescuing poor innocent people like you from the guillotine.’
‘We’re not heroes,’ corrected Ada. ‘We’re trying to do the right thing. The Terror – these executions are unjust. If we can help set the scales in the other direction, we will.’
Olympe tensed. ‘You side with the Royalists?’
Ada shook her head. ‘No. We side with the people who never asked for this violence. The innocent people caught in the middle.’
‘I created the battalion to rescue people like my parents,’ explained Camille. ‘Innocent people sentenced to death by an inhuman system. I asked Ada and Guil and Al to help me because I’d known them before – Ada and Guil from the political clubs, and my father had been Al’s family’s lawyer. I knew they were people I could trust, and people who would understand why we needed to do whatever we could to help make things right.’
‘As long as they can pay,’ added Al, taking another sip of his drink. ‘I want it on record that I’m only in it for the money. And spite. Not so easy for all my family’s aristocrat friends to pretend I don’t exist when they have to beg me for help.’ He smiled, cold and cat-like.
‘That’s not true – it’s not about the money.’
‘Oh, really? When’s the last time we did anything free, gratis and for nothing?’
Ada bit her lip. ‘I mean, we do have to eat…’ she started but trailed off. It sounded hollow even to her.
Olympe pushed a lump of stewed liver around her plate, before abandoning it. ‘But I don’t understand. What do the Royalists want with me?’
‘I was hoping you could tell us that,’ replied Camille. ‘Start from the beginning. In your cell you said you had lived in the country before they took you to the prison. With your mother.’
Olympe nodded. ‘Yes, with Maman – and the medical men. They were our only visitors. They…’
She paused, fingers twisting together in her lap. Ada didn’t know how she could look so much like a demon and a nervous child at once. Maybe she was both.
Camille gave her an encouraging smile. ‘Anything you can tell us could help us.’
Olympe took a deep breath and started again. ‘The medical men – they did experiments on me to see what I can do. Often things that hurt. They said they had been studying me since before I was born. Comtois is the one who came the most, in recent years. The others… I’m sorry, I don’t remember them well. The things they did… It is difficult to make myself think about it. Their faces all blur. I think I don’t want to remember them.’
‘What do you mean, what you can do?’ asked Al. ‘Why on earth would someone be studying you?’
Olympe looked at Camille, who nodded.
‘Keep it subtle,’ she said, glancing at the other patrons.
Slowly, Olympe peeled off one glove and held her hand out to the coffee pot. Blue sparks leaped from her fingertips, crackling over the metal surface. Within seconds, steam was whistling from the spout as the water boiled.
Al let out a string of yelps and curses, scrambling back behind the table. Guil swore under his breath, turning from Camille to Ada for some sort of explanation. But Ada was lost for words. She would call it all impossible. But it clearly was possible, however much her mind rebelled at the thought. She just needed to work out how.
‘What the hell is this supposed to be?’ said Al from his hiding spot. ‘Did someone put something in my drink? Are we having some sort of collective hallucination, or do I actually need to go and find a priest because there is a demon in front of me?’
‘She’s not a demon,’ cut in Ada.
‘Since when were you an expert?’
‘It’s science, not magic or devilry,’ she explained with more confidence than she felt. ‘She’s manipulating electricity.’
Hastily, Olympe pulled her gloves back on and shivered. ‘How strange to be able to do that again. It was winter when they shut me away and now it is summer. I don’t think I’ve ever gone so long without a spark before today.’
Al inched back out from behind the table.
‘Science?’
‘Yes, you’ve seen them do tricks and demonstrations at the theatre, haven’t you?’
‘That was a dog that barked in German, this is … is…’ He stared wide-eyed at Olympe.
Guil was nodding thoughtfully. ‘I have seen electrical displays before, they were popular at home in Marseille, but it has to be acknowledged that this is something far beyond a parlour trick.’
Silence hung between them, only broken by the clatter of hooves and carriage wheels outside, and the hiss of steam from the coffee pot. Olympe drew all their attention where she sat, small and upright and frightening to behold.
Guil retrieved the steaming pot and poured out five cups of gritty coffee.
‘Is this why the duc wants you?’ asked Ada. ‘Maybe Comtois knew someone would try to take you, and that’s why he locked you up?’
Camille shrugged. ‘That wouldn’t be an unreasonable guess.’
Al lit his pipe from a candle, hands still shaking. ‘The Revolutionaries have you locked up like the crown jewels in a vault. Clearly you’re valuable to them. But what do the Royalists want with some strange science experiment? Got bored and fancied a little light dabbling in the Dark Arts?’
Camille shot him a look, but Olympe spoke before she could say anything.
‘I don’t care what they want with me. I’m grateful to have been rescued, but I won’t go back to Docteur Comtois, and I won’t go to this duc either.’
‘That’s all very nice, but we’ve been given rather a lot of money to hand you over,’ said Al.
Grey,
swirling clouds consumed Olympe’s face as she rounded on Al. In a flash, the scared girl was gone and a scowling demon was in her place, blue sparks arcing ominously along her jaw. The light from the candles dwindled as darkness gathered around them, a smothering of shadows and crackling ozone.
‘You’ve seen what I can do. Good luck forcing me.’
He gave a shrug, going back to his pipe, but Ada could see in the tense set of his shoulders that Olympe scared him.
Olympe turned to Camille as the shadows began to recede.
‘Before, you said everything was a choice. That there was no fate, no destiny. Well – this is my choice. I’m not going back to Comtois. And I’m not letting you hand me over to the duc. I want to find my mother, and to be free.’
Camille chewed her bottom lip but said nothing.
It was clear this was no straightforward prison rescue. And handing Olympe over wouldn’t be delivering her into the loving hands of her family.
But if they didn’t, what the hell were they getting themselves into?
3
Section Marat
There were still the last vestiges of daylight in the long summer evening outside the Au Petit Suisse. The rain had blown over, leaving a washed-out sky and quagmires of mud clogging the roads. Camille and Guil picked their way up the Rue de la Liberté, between drays stuck in the mud, abandoned stacks of empty crates and barrels, and ducking under low-hanging eves and upper floors that projected over the street so far they seemed to almost touch above their heads. Leaving Ada and Al to keep watch over Olympe, Camille had set out with Guil to check a nearby safe house. With her crackling blue sparks of electricity and eyes like pitch, Olympe was hard to keep hidden. Camille came close to understanding why the Revolutionaries had gone to such lengths to keep her secret and protect themselves.
The closer to the river they came, the more the old heart of the city showed itself in the tiny wooden buildings made more from whitewash and hope than timber, with sagging beams and cloudy mullioned windows. The front window of each operated as a discrete shop displaying silverware and handkerchiefs, leather shoes, ink, nails and knives. Despite the late hour, the streets were teeming. At the junction of several roads, the deconsecrated convent of the Cordeliers took up almost an entire block. The huge refectory a monolith, with its turret and tall arched windows that tapered to a point. A few windows had been boarded up and weeds and moss grew like mould between the ancient stones of its walls. After the nuns had left, the convent had been taken over as a political club. But the leaders had all been executed a few months ago, and now it was another ghost haunting Revolutionary Paris.
A low wall blocked the gap between the refectory and the cloisters, with a door set into the stone. Guil stood in front of Camille to hide her as she used a judicious boot to the rotting wood to force it open. Then they both slipped into the quiet of the convent grounds.
It was peaceful like a graveyard. The formal gardens had run wild, grass and flowers spilling over the walkways that swallowed the sound of their footsteps. A sweep of the buildings showed no sign of squatters or anyone else who’d thought an empty convent could be a useful hiding place.
‘We move Olympe here as soon as possible. Tomorrow night, once it’s dark.’ Camille shoved her hands in her pockets, breathing easier.
‘Agreed.’
As they returned, she hesitated by the fogged-up window of a café, her face half in shadow from the oil lamp suspended over the street.
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘You know you always can.’
She folded her arms, sifting through the right words to use.
‘How do you know if you’re doing the right thing?’
‘Ah.’
Guil folded his arms to mirror her and moved to stand side by side.
‘Is this about Olympe?’
Camille snorted softly. ‘I wasn’t trying to be subtle.’
‘Indeed. You are worried your judgment in this matter is not clear?’
She sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. ‘Maybe it’s just because it’s been such a bloody long day, but right now it seems as clear as mud. I’m not deluded, am I? This whole thing is seriously not right. I knew the Revolutionaries were bastards, they sent my parents to the slaughter without blinking – but this? They welded that mask around her face, sewed her into her clothes as though she’s not even human. It’s sick.’
‘I doubt the Royalists have much better intentions for her welfare.’
‘I suppose not, or why would they have lied about the job?’
The café door opened and a clamour of voices and music and light poured out. Two drunken students lurched off and the door closed again.
‘What if we’re making a mistake? When you and Ada and Al and I started the battalion, this isn’t what we had in mind.’
‘Isn’t it? We rescued someone innocent from an awful fate. I rather thought that was the whole idea.’
‘You know what I mean. We’ve got caught up in something we can’t even begin to understand. Who should I be protecting, my battalion, or a stranger?’
‘We all signed up for a dangerous life, Camille. We get to make that choice for ourselves.’ Guil pushed back the brim of his hat and scratched his forehead. ‘If Olympe wants her freedom, then who are we to take it from her?’
‘Even if it’s dangerous? Even if it puts us all at risk?’
He laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité. I believe it still means something to us. I was an idealistic young recruit fresh to Paris when I met you two years ago, right here at the political clubs, but I knew straight away that you were one of the bravest and strongest people I’d meet in my life. I came back to you after I deserted because I knew you. I knew I believed in you, that I trusted you.’
‘I don’t know if I’m worth that trust.’
His eyes flashed. ‘That’s my choice to make. When I left my family in Marseilles to join the Revolutionary Army my father was disappointed that I would not be following him into his business. But he understood that I did what I did because I believed it to be good, and true, and right. I was naive.’ His mouth twisted and it took him a moment or two to collect himself. ‘I deserted because I couldn’t keep serving a political force I didn’t believe in. This terror dressed up as revolution is not something I could put my name to. I was crushed, the dream I’d held of fighting for freedom and change and liberation was a lie. But then you and Al and Ada and I came together and that dream became something real again.’
She scuffed the toe of her boot against the cobbles, dangerously close to tears. With the back of her sleeve she scrubbed at her eyes.
‘You have too much faith in me.’
‘I don’t think so.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘After all, who else is trying to keep people from the guillotine? No one. Only you.’
‘Only us,’ she corrected.
The adrenaline from her escape earlier had finally faded, and she was left feeling a low, creeping dread.
Her father’s pistol hung heavy and insistent at her side.
‘Back then, did you ever think things would end up like this?’
‘Like this?’
She shrugged. ‘Messy.’
‘No. No one ever does.’
‘Sometimes I wonder what my parents would think if they could see me now. Would they think I’m doing enough? Would they be proud of me?’
‘We make the best decisions with the information we have. You know the right thing to do. It will always be difficult and require compromise. But you know, Camille.’
Her parents had stood up for what they believed in, even when it had been messy and complicated. They had stood their ground – and lost their lives.
Camille’s hand dropped to her father’s pistol.
He’d never gifted it to her – shooting was no business for a well brought-up girl – but she’d taken it when she had tried to rescue him. On her own, without the battalion she’d yet to form, she ha
d failed.
She’d kept the pistol. That, and a locket of her mother’s, buried in the back of a drawer, was all she had left of them.
She couldn’t fail again.
She had to stand her ground too, and live.
‘We’re going to have to help this girl, aren’t we?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even if it puts us all in danger.’
‘Yes.’
‘Even if it’s stupid and risky and we’re wildly outgunned.’
‘Aren’t we always?’
The corner of her mouth twitched. ‘I suppose that is half the fun.’
‘We have things going for us. This duc has already underestimated us once. He believes we couldn’t possibly be cleverer than him. It is not a hopeless case.’
Her eyebrows furrowed. ‘Then why do I feel as if I’m inviting you all to climb into a pit of snakes.’
‘I like snakes.’
She laughed and Guil tipped her a wink as they started on the short walk back to the Au Petit Suisse.
Camille allowed herself one last stroke of the smooth wood of the pistol’s handle, before rolling her shoulders back and shaking off her funk.
If they were going to pull this off, she had no time for doubt.
4
The Parlour, Au Petit Suisse
Ada set to work cutting Olympe out of her dress. It was stiff with sweat and filth and she threw it straight on the fire. She’d left Al downstairs to wait for Camille and Guil’s return. Olympe was shivering, her shift still damp with muddy river water. Ada went through her dresses to find one she could lend to Olympe. She settled on an eggshell blue cotton morning dress that had seen better days. She didn’t want to insult Olympe, but also she couldn’t spare her finer gowns. Al called it vanity, but she knew clothes meant something. It was why anyone who wanted to avoid trouble wore a tricolore pinned to their hat; why peasant’s trousers were more popular than aristocratic breeches; why the silk trade was crumbling as the Revolution killed off extravagance. The right outfit was a ticket in when her face made people want to shut her out. It was a cover story that told itself, a weapon as potent as Camille’s pistol. A game that Ada intended to play well.