by Kat Dunn
She sat on the edge of the bed, touching her earlobe and feeling the ghost of the emerald’s weight. She had taken her mother’s earrings when she’d left home. Maybe it was finally time to pawn them. She didn’t have to keep turning to her father for money. She could be better than that.
But then they would be gone. The only thing she had left to remember her by.
No, it wasn’t time yet.
On the way back from the theatre, Camille had explained what Léon had told them about the duc’s likely hiding place. It was agreed they would go there at dawn next morning, once they’d had time to prepare.
‘I’m not walking into another trap,’ Camille had said darkly.
In the parlour Guil was repairing the soldier’s uniform that had been damaged in their escape from the Conciergerie. James watched him.
‘Gosh, aren’t you all handy? I can sew up skin but set me to work on a button and it would be a disaster.’
Guil didn’t look up. ‘You learn to shift for yourself in the army. It’s a terrible shock for some of the little lords going from their grand apartments to the officers’ camp.’
Olympe was restlessly pacing the room, winding and unwinding a ball of yarn to keep the static from crackling between her fingers. She still wore thick make-up, hands flitting nervously to her ear or jaw, testing to see if the powder had held. An anxious arc of blue sparks coiled around her throat, making her hair frizz and halo.
Ada saw James give Olympe a curious look and quickly cleared her throat to get his attention. ‘I’m going to look for a map of the abbey. Be useful and come with me, James.’
He glanced at Camille. ‘I can, if you like, but I thought I was supposed to be lying low?’
‘You are,’ agreed Camille. Ada gave a pointed nod in Olympe’s direction and understanding crossed Camille’s face. ‘But I don’t want anyone travelling alone right now. Go with Ada.’
He stood, reaching for his jacket. ‘If you insist.’
Ada ignored his hopeful smile and swept down the stairs out to the street, James following.
Their Paris section was never quiet. With the Sorbonne University, the glittering Luxembourg pleasure gardens and the now defunct Cordeliers Club all within a stone’s throw, the streets were always busy. Shops and cafés opened until late at night, their awnings hanging over cobbled roads lined with crooked townhouses, three, four, five storeys high. They sank against their neighbours, plaster flaking from the stone and water dripping from broken gutters. The once fine gardens and facades of the old hôtels of the aristocracy had fallen into disrepair, spilling weeds and dead branches into already-clogged drains. The ghost of their former glory still haunted the city in the elaborate stone curlicues above the doorways, the wrought-iron balconies and slate-grey roofs. People filled the streets; young girls selling wilted cress, opium addicts slumped in dark doorways and street sellers hawking fortunes and rosaries in equal measure. Glamorous young wives bought spools of ribbon and lace as polished gilt carriages clattered past pristine glass shop fronts, disgorging the petit bourgeoisies into the law firms and counting houses. Ada stepped from cobblestone to cobblestone, holding her dress up out of the muck that flowed freely along the street.
Being in James’s company made her heart feel raw, but she couldn’t deny that some masochistic part of her was desperately curious about him. This boy Camille had selected before her. She looked him over as they walked. Tall, broad-shouldered, a lick of hair curling into his eyes. With his hat and coat brushed clean and buckles shining on his shoes she could see how expensively he dressed, how his cream linen waistcoat and breeches were tailored carefully to fit.
They gave the Conciergerie a wide berth and crossed the Île de la Cité at the far end by Notre Dame, the bridge lined on either side by jumbled black and white timber-frame houses. It was early evening, and the long summer days meant sunset was way off.
‘Is Cam always so tense these days?’ asked James as they reached the Right Bank.
There he was again, talking about Camille as if he owned everything about her. The familiarity of the nickname, the presumption that he knew her. That intimacy Ada had thought only she and Camille shared.
‘Only when we’ve got a job. Which is most of the time.’
‘And I’m still not allowed to know what this job is? Other than it involves an abbey that you need a map for.’
‘No, Camille’s orders.’
‘I see. At least that hasn’t changed. She always did like to be in charge.’
‘Why, was she very different when you knew her?’
‘In a way. It doesn’t surprise me, if that’s what you mean. I could see it in her. But life was different then. She had her parents. We didn’t have to make these sorts of choices about who we were going to be.’
She paused to step over an open sewer. ‘Just because there isn’t a revolution doesn’t mean we don’t have to choose who we are.’
James didn’t reply. She shot a glance back at him and thought she caught a flicker of tension.
‘No,’ he said eventually as they were passing the muddy banks by the Hôtel de Ville where the Paris Commune held court. ‘You’re right. I suppose that’s why I’m here. I want to make sure Cam knows that I still choose her – it was rather decided for us, our families were friends and it seemed natural that we should marry. Everything has changed, of course, but I want to make sure she knows that when this blows over she still has a family. Somewhere to belong.’
Ada felt as if she’d been punched. She took a few moments to collect herself before she said, ‘Cam has a family. She has us. I think she’s happy.’
‘Ah, well. That’s Cam for you. You never can quite tell if she’s happy – or angry or sad or bored, or much of anything. She keeps it all closed up in her head because I don’t think she knows herself what would make her happy.’
‘And you do?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve spent most of my life trying.’
Across the river, the Place de Grève was busy with people loitering, hoping for work in the farms or factories, or unloading wood, wheat, wine and hay from the boats gathered in the old port. A few young girls were dancing while a boy played the revolutionary anthem ‘Ça Ira’ on a fiddle, practising for the grand parade at the Festival of the Supreme Being.
They turned into side streets, Ada nursing a ball of hurt, as they weaved towards the bookshop she thought might have something useful.
She had another reason for going there, but she didn’t need to tell James about that.
Outside the bookshop, trestle tables had been set up with boxes of cheap chapbooks and old pamphlets curling at the corner stuffed in with prints and maps and other papers. It took some digging to find anything promising: a badly damaged copy of Turgot’s 1739 map of Paris, but the square showing the Faubourg Saint Martin was intact. The abbey was picked out in beautiful detail, each tree in the garden, each window and doorway. It was perfect.
Ada went inside to buy it. Passing the scientific shelves, she picked up a copy of Galvani’s Commentary on the Effect of Electricity on Muscular Motion. She hadn’t taken her copy when she left home, but she thought it would be useful to understand more about Olympe’s powers.
The owner was a short elderly man, perched among stacks of books like a crow watching for carrion. Bookselling was one of the few industries thriving under the Revolution, after the royal censor had been eliminated.
‘Citoyen Bisset.’ She put coins on the counter to pay for the map.
Bisset made a show of writing up the sale in his ledger, then handed over the map along with a furl of assignat notes. Ada peeled off one note and gave it back to him.
‘For your trouble.’
‘Many thanks. Your father apologises for not sending so much this time. He also left a message.’
He pulled a folded and sealed letter from a stack of papers. Ada saw her father’s fluid, looping hand on the front. Her heart stuttered. For a moment she considered ripping up the letter a
nd leaving that as her return message.
But she knew she wasn’t that person. She stuffed the letter into her pocket along with the notes. Without a word, she hurried out of the shop and steered James back towards the river. She wanted to get as far away from her guilt as possible.
James spied the book under her arm.
‘Is that Galvani’s Commentary? Mind if I borrow it when you’re done?’
Ada looked at him in surprise. ‘You’re interested in electricity?’
‘I dabble. I’m a first year in medicine at St Bart’s – the London Hospital Medical College, if you want to be formal about it. I’m curious about the medical applications of electricity.’
‘You’re not at Oxford?’ asked Ada, changing the subject.
James shook his head. ‘No chance. They’re still stuck in 1300 and think modern medicine is some sort of devilry. Not a decent medical school to be found outside the capital – unless you go all the way up to Edinburgh, but my mother wasn’t keen on me going so far.’
‘You can read it when I’ve finished, if you like.’
He turned his dazzling smile on her. ‘Thanks.’
As they made their way back, their conversation shifted from trading favourite periodicals to competing theories of electricity.
‘Galvani’s got it right, I think,’ he said. ‘Electricity is something native to the body. It must be. Look at its vitality, its force, its dynamism. If it’s not discovered to be some facet of the soul, I’d be astounded.’
‘You still believe in the soul?’
‘Of course. I see it in the very being of each person I meet.’
She shook her head.
He smiled. ‘You think me foolish?’
‘No. Just naive. The soul died long before the guillotine arrived in Paris.’ She looked away, at the scant supplies in the shops and the hungry people queuing, dressed in scraps and rags. ‘It died when rich men in charge forgot we’re human too.’
She saw his smile falter.
A mail carriage halted them at the edge of the Rue St Denis, rumbling past with its six-strong dray horses clattering over the cobbles and metre-high wheels kicking up mud. When it passed, the silence between them fell heavy.
‘In England, do women participate in scientific research?’ she asked eventually.
‘Hmm? Oh, not particularly. You don’t find many women are interested in it.’
‘You must think me strange, then.’
‘Not especially. I think most of the women I meet at home simply don’t know there’s something out there they could be interested in. Maybe it’s hard to imagine there are things other than needlepoint and party planning if you’re never exposed to them. If you don’t understand what your options are, can you truly make a choice?’
Something about that didn’t strike her as quite right, but she couldn’t find the appropriate words to disagree with him. Did he think she and Camille weren’t really making real choices about their lives?
‘Look – when this is over, why don’t you come to England with Cam? I’ve heard they’re starting to train some nurses properly at the London schools – we don’t have convents to do the nursing like France does, you see, so the medical men have realised they’ll have to get something organised themselves. I can put in a word at St Bart’s, see if we can find you a place. If that would be something you wanted, of course.’
‘I – thank you.’
Ada tried and failed to keep the sour note out of her voice. Grudgingly, she thought she might understand what Camille saw in him. He did seem so terribly kind.
Which only made everything feel so much worse.
7
The Bedroom, Au Petit Suisse
18 Prairial Year II, two days until the deadline
Camille swallowed a mouthful of rancid river water and choked. In the dream, she knew she was supposed to do something, but all she could think about was the crush of cold against her lungs and the dragging weight of her sodden clothes.
Something snatched at her sleeve, fingers tangled in her hair. Someone was scrabbling at her, pulling her deeper into the river. She went under, nose filling with water. A base instinct took over and she bucked and writhed until the hands let go and she broke the surface, gulping air. She caught a flash of buildings rushing by and tall, stone archways shooting overhead.
The grey hands grabbed at her again, pulling on her shoulders and lifting the weight of their body onto her. Grey hands.
Olympe clung to her, pushing her under the water.
Camille twisted from her grip and moved round behind her, hooking her arms under Olympe’s armpits and treading water.
‘Stop it! Stop fighting me!’
Paris slid by in a hazy blur of water and sky and buildings, rain smattering her face.
She tried to angle them towards the bank, but they were sinking. She was so tired. No matter how much she kicked the bank never seemed to be any closer. Her legs felt like jelly and the water kept lapping against her jaw, into her mouth. It would almost be a relief to let go, sink beneath the waves. She saw Guil kneel at the bank, reaching for her. But he was so far away. For a moment, she could feel Ada’s hand in hers, warm and gentle.
Then her head slid beneath the water.
She woke, mouth dry and tongue thick and strange between her teeth.
A nightmare. That was all. Memories of her escape with Olympe from the prison, replaying in her tired mind.
Sitting up, she found Ada’s side of the bed cold and empty. Camille rubbed her hands over her face, trying to bring some life back to herself. Just a nightmare.
Then she remembered: the real hell was yet to come. They had two days left before the Revolutionaries expected her to hand Olympe over. The Royalists could make their move sooner. Time to sleep or worry about nightmares was not a luxury she could afford.
She dressed quickly in her usual Sans Culottes outfit of rough black trousers, a short red jacket and a sturdy pair of leather boots. Her hair she pinned up under her Phrygian cap, the tricolore cockade hanging limply from its folded brim. Rifling through her dresser drawers for her spare stash of shot for her pistol, her fingers closed on the chain of her mother’s locket instead. She paused, running her finger over the engraving. She dug a nail into the gap between the two halves and eased it open. Inside was a coil of brittle blonde hair. In one half was a cameo of her mother, whose hair the locket held. Her kind, clever, dead mother. In the other half was a cameo of her father. He looked as stern and cold as he had in life. It was the only picture of them she had. For a moment, she was struck by how different her parents’ revolution had been. They had thought they would be leaving her a better world. Instead they had only left her behind.
She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Olympe came in and shut the door behind her.
‘You’re taking me with you.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘To the abbey. You’re taking me.’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Why not?’
Camille looked at her incredulously. ‘Any number of reasons, first and foremost being that we’re trying very hard to not get you caught by anyone again.’
‘If you thought there was that much of a risk of getting caught, you wouldn’t be going.’ Olympe folded her arms. ‘More importantly: you need me.’
‘Why?’
‘Well…’ Olympe faltered. ‘Well, because none of you know what the experiments on me looked like. So you need me to tell you if what you find has anything to do with me. And – and also because I can protect you.’ She held up a bare hand. ‘This is a better weapon than anything you have. They locked me up because of it. It must mean I’m powerful.’
Camille took a deep breath. ‘I promised I would keep you safe. That wouldn’t be keeping you safe.’
‘Why do you think you can make decisions for me? You’re keeping me in the dark, all of you. You have conversations about me when I’m not here and make decisions about my future. Don’t think I haven
’t heard you talking when you think I’m asleep.’
‘We’re not keeping anything from you. This is our work, we make plans.’
‘That’s what I mean!’ Blue sparks danced up her arms and the smell of ozone filled the room. Camille felt the low hum in the air between her teeth and in the curling ends of her hair. ‘This is my life, not a strategy for you to plan. If you think going to this abbey is going to help get information that could buy my freedom then I am coming with you to see for myself.’ Her anger seemed to shock her and she stopped, taking a few shaky breaths as the charge building around her body began to fade. ‘I’m not saying I think you lie. I just can’t let my life be in someone else’s hands again. Please.’
Camille pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to steady the hitch in her breath. She didn’t have time to argue about this, or deal with Ada and James. And she didn’t need a doctor either. Her lungs were bad, but they were always bad. Her dunk in the river hadn’t done any lasting damage. She had everything under control.
‘Fine. For what it’s worth, I think you’re right. We will need you to help us work out if what he’s doing there is connected to you.’
‘Thank you.’
The morning was fraught with preparations – and keeping James out of the preparations. Camille sent him on a series of errands to get bread and salt and candle stubs and news-sheets, which Al immediately snatched before disappearing with a mumbled excuse Camille hadn’t caught. Ada sat Olympe by the window to paint over her swirling, stormy skin with make-up lifted from the theatre. Guil was studying a map of the abbey, measuring distances and making notes.