by Kat Dunn
‘I’m not like you. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.’
Before Ada could reply, he vanished into the crowd.
2
The Saints-Innocents Safe House
Camille had passed another restless night, chased out of sleep by nightmares of blood and smoke. The deadline had arrived and she felt no more equipped to meet it than she had three days ago. When it had been time to change watch, she had gone downstairs to wake James. Then she had stayed, despite the damp irritating her lungs, and tried to persuade herself to talk to Ada. Ada was bundled in an old cloak, silk scarf tied around her hair, and folded into an alcove. It wasn’t the first time they’d slept apart, or even gone to sleep fighting. Camille knew she wasn’t easy to live with.
But it was the first time she thought they might not wake up still together.
She watched Ada’s chest rise and fall in the darkness for a long while. Then slunk back upstairs to wait for dawn.
She must have slept at least in snatches, because when she went downstairs again to wake the others in the muzzy dawn, she found only a note saying Ada and Al had gone already and would meet them there.
She had left it too late.
Crushing the paper, she went to prepare. Not that there was much to prepare. She needed something – anything to distract her from what was about to come.
And she found it.
Guil was awake and trying to lever himself off the tomb he was using as a bed.
‘No! Absolutely not. Stop that.’
Camille was at his side at once, pushing him back down.
‘I am well rested. I am ready to get up.’
‘Ready to rip all your stitches out maybe.’
He gave her a long-suffering look but allowed himself to be propped at a raised angle against a stack of bags.
‘There. That’s as up as I’m willing to allow.’
‘Thank you.’
Camille fetched her pistol to check it over, then put it down and started fiddling with her tricolore cockade.
Guil reached to still her hand.
‘We are as prepared as we can be.’
She glowered at him.
‘Are we? Doesn’t feel like it. Actually feels the exact opposite.’
‘Hindsight always makes us into fools. The only path open to us is to do the best we can with the knowledge we have.’
‘Is that what you were thinking when you got yourself stabbed?’
She wanted to take back the words as soon as she said them. Guil’s expression hardened.
‘Injury is an occupational hazard.’
‘It is if you fling yourself into the path of danger like that!’
‘I did what I thought was best.’
‘I told you not to. I told you to run.’
‘And if I had listened you would be dead.’
‘You don’t know that.’ She knew she sounded like a petulant child and she hated it. She tried again. ‘My life isn’t worth risking yours. I don’t ever want to ask that of you.’
Guil hauled himself upright, wincing as the movement pulled at his stitches. His face was like thunder. Camille had never seen him quite like this.
‘I am not here simply to dispense wisdom and support you in your choices,’ he said. ‘I am part of this because I want to be. I know you think you are responsible for us all, but don’t you dare take my agency from me. This was my choice. I have made bad choices and good choices in this life, but they are my own choices. I thought if anyone you would understand that.’
She licked her lips, searching for the right words. ‘I do. I’m sorry. You’re right, but please take better care of yourself. Not just for my sake – for yours too.’
He took her hand again. ‘Only if you’ll promise me the same thing.’
‘Ah, well. That’s us both doomed, then.’ She squeezed his hand with a smile, then pulled away.
‘Camille…’
‘No, it’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it.’
‘But I want to talk about it. I … care for you. In a way I know you cannot return. I am telling you this because I want you to know that I do not see your friendship as a consolation prize. Your friendship is far more important to me than any fantasy of a different relationship. This life – what we do to help people – that is the prize. I wonder sometimes if the reason I first felt something for you is because I saw a fresh purpose in the battalion. You stood for something I could understand. Perhaps I have been using the battalion for my own ends. Perhaps I have been using you.’
Camille held his gaze, taking in the deep brown of his eyes, the scar that flecked one eyebrow. ‘None of us is perfectly selfless in this.’
‘No, I suppose not. But I want more from myself. I could have stayed back in Marseille, safe with my family. Taken on my father’s business, lived a life of trade and prayer, but that is not me. I may get hurt. I may die because of the choices I make. But I would rather die fighting for something good than live in mediocrity. The choices we make are all we have that define us. They are all we can leave behind of ourselves. So, no, I will make no promise not to get hurt. Or not to take risks when I think they are necessary. I could, but then I would not be myself.’
He broke off, grimacing, one hand pressed to his bandaged side.
‘All right, all right.’ Camille blinked away her tears. ‘Be your annoying self. God, you’re all so frustrating.’
‘And yet, we are your family.’
‘Yes. You are.’
‘Because you are my family, I will say one more thing: we tell ourselves both sides are as bad as each other, and that is why we can sit in the middle, doing our work and exempting ourselves from judgement. Do you really think that’s true?’
Camille’s expression fell. ‘You know I do.’
‘I don’t think you do. I think you know as well as I do that sitting on the fence doesn’t make you free from guilt – it makes you complicit. I know neither of us want the Royalists back, but if we cannot save the Revolution, what else will happen?’
She opened and closed her mouth, unable to answer. Because he was right. If the Revolution fell, any chance for change would be lost. But what would be the cost of keeping it alive?
‘I don’t mean to make you work out where you stand right now – but I fear it won’t be long before we are forced to choose. And I know, for myself, I want to choose well.’
Camille buried her face in her hands. ‘Can we go back to talking about your unrequited love for me? That conversation was easier.’
He laughed, letting the tension ease.
Their eyes met, and she felt a flash of hope that even after everything that had happened the past few days, there might be something approaching normal waiting for her on the other side.
‘I will heal, Camille. Don’t fret.’
‘Thank god for James. We really should have had someone with medical knowledge on the team before.’
‘No, I meant this job. This is the point of the battalion. And we’ve got out of worse scrapes.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘If you mean the Nemours job, then I don’t really think that counts. Or don’t you remember setting my hair on fire?’
‘That was a wig.’ Guil grinned. ‘We left with all limbs and the money we’d been sent for. I think it was a complete success.’
Footsteps clattered up from the crypt and James and Olympe joined them, stretching from sleep.
‘How’s the patient this morning?’
Camille handed over responsibility for redressing Guil’s wounds to James, while she fished out the make-up to get Olympe ready.
Olympe sat opposite, looking at her with such hope, such faith. Such unwavering darkness.
‘Are you ready?’ she asked quietly enough for the boys not to hear.
Camille swiped the paint along Olympe’s throat, up to her jaw.
Knowing what she was about to do, she couldn’t look her in the eye.
‘Yes. I’m ready.’
3
&
nbsp; On the Pont National
As the festival deputations were leaving their sections in the breezy early afternoon, Camille took up her observation point, perched on the stone balustrade of the bridge. Each troupe marched across in long crocodiles of children, young women and men all dressed in white with tricolore sashes. They made their way along the riverbanks, first to the ornate Jardin des Tuileries with its clipped hedges and neat flowerbeds, then on to the Champs de Mars and the mountain that lowered over the rooftops. On the Right Bank the vast, luxuriant sprawl of the Palais des Tuileries and the old Louvre palace loomed over the river.
James arrived with Olympe as the final procession set off, taking the bulk of the crowd with it. He wore Guil’s borrowed military uniform as planned, a little long at the wrist and ankle on him. With his shining hair and bright blue eyes, he looked a vision of martial strength. Olympe was dressed in the simplest, most childish dress of Ada’s they could find, a white calico with a pattern of tiny sprigs of flowers. They’d hastily taken in the waist and hem with a blue silk sash, then added a large hat that hid her face. Camille wanted everyone involved today to remember how young and vulnerable Olympe was. The crowd thinned further, but still Ada and Al didn’t show up. Finally, as anxiety was shredding her nerves, Ada appeared.
‘Where is he?’ asked Camille.
‘He’s – he’s not coming.’
‘What? Are you serious?’ She leaped down from her perch. ‘That’s unacceptable.’
‘Cam—’
‘No. We have a job to do and, what, he’s decided he’s not feeling like it? We’re a team – or we’re supposed to be. He can’t just pick and choose when he’s one of us.’
‘That’s not what he’s doing, listen—’
‘We all signed up for this. We said we wanted to make a difference, to do something good. To have some bloody sense of meaning, of control when the world is literally ending around us—’
‘Camille! Will you shut up and listen to me! Al lost his parents this morning. They were executed today.’
‘Oh my god.’ James covered his mouth with his hand.
‘What?’ Camille stared at her, stunned. The chatter of people on the bridge rose to a roar in her ears, the splash and slap of water against the boats below was deafening. She felt the void gape beneath her, horror rippling through her body. She wasn’t here. It wasn’t now. For a flash, she was eight months back. Alone in a crowd as the blade of the guillotine dropped with a whistle and thunk; she could smell the blood that had splattered her dress, feel her chest seize as she watched a head roll across the boards towards her.
‘How?’ Olympe asked, twisting the fingers of her gloves. ‘Why didn’t you know? Couldn’t you have rescued them?’
‘He kept it from us,’ replied Ada. ‘I wondered why he was always stealing the news-sheets… I don’t think he wanted us to know. Or wanted our help.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s – I’m not…’ Ada squeezed her eyes shut. ‘He can explain it himself, if he wants to. But right now I can’t blame him for not wanting to do this.’
‘Where is he?’ asked James. ‘We have to go after him.’
‘No.’ Camille shook herself. ‘He made his choice. We’re doing this without him. We have one shot at this and I’m not going to mess it up.’
She wrapped her hand around Olympe’s arm and pulled her over.
‘Cam…’ started Ada.
Camille ignored her and headed towards the Left Bank. ‘James, get in position. Ada, the duc is expecting you.’
She had to move fast, keep moving or her nightmares would catch up with her.
They reached the Quai d’Orsay, and James saluted.
‘See you on the other side.’
Ada came with them as they followed the river towards the Champs de Mars. The mountain rose above the crowds like the quiet eye of the storm that swirled around it. Up there, the Revolutionaries would be congratulating themselves. Comtois and Molyneux. Camille curled one hand around the handle of her pistol, eyeing the toy-like figures on the platform at the top.
They paused while Ada squeezed Camille’s hand, then she disappeared among the crowds on the Pont de la Révolution, heading towards the Jardin des Tuileries to meet the duc. Camille led Olympe past the columns of the Palais Bourbon and onto the vast grasslands of the Champs de Mars where the mountain finally came into full view.
‘Is that where Docteur Comtois is?’ asked Olympe.
‘That’s the spot.’
They stopped by the mossy foothills. Deputations from each Paris section were arranged around the mountain, girls and boys in pure white, young women decked in tricolore sashes paraded aboard donkey carts decorated with twists of greenery and wildflowers. Competing bands of musicians played in every direction, dancing breaking out in gaps in the crowd, bottle after bottle of pastis and wine flowed like water. The carnival atmosphere teetered, as it always did in Paris these days, between exultation and protest. Spirits and tempers were too high, soldiers gripped their muskets twitchily and drunken people eyed the politicians on the mountain with barely concealed contempt.
Olympe edged tighter into her side.
‘You promise you won’t let them hurt me?’
Camille’s nightmare kept playing through her mind, the slice of the guillotine blade as it severed skin and muscle and bone. She’d thought the worst machine of death had made its home in Paris already. If anyone got hold of Olympe, they could make the guillotine look like a toy.
‘Do you trust me?’ she asked.
Olympe hesitated, a coil of smoky grey sliding across her mouth. Then nodded.
‘My dear Camille!’ Molyneux called down to her from the pathway on the first tier up. ‘I am glad to see you here, and who you’ve brought. I knew you would see sense.’
Camille yanked Olympe in front of her so Molyneux could get a good look at her.
‘I did. May we come up?’
‘Of course!’ He rocked on his heels, tracking Olympe’s movements with glinting eyes.
The guards blocking the entrance to the path stepped aside, and Camille and Olympe climbed the mountain. It wasn’t long before Camille's lungs were wheezing and tight, her head light. Molyneux met them at the first tier and led them the rest of the way to the top platform where Comtois was leaning against the railings, surveying the sea of people spreading to the river and along the far side on the Champs Élysées. Next to him was an unimposing man with a lithe, cat-like face and green eyes behind small spectacles. He wore a sky-blue silk suit and a tricolore striped scarf.
Molyneux guided her over, his hand on her elbow. ‘Now, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. I don’t think he’s seen you since you were still in the schoolroom.’
Camille kept a tight grip on Olympe’s arm as they were drawn into the belly of the beast. Comtois straightened immediately on sight of Olympe. Camille felt her trembling. The man beside Comtois turned as well, examining them through his spectacles.
Molyneux nudged her forwards, giving her an avuncular wink of encouragement.
‘President Robespierre, I’d like you to meet Camille Laroche.’
4
In the Jardin des Tuileries
Ada found the Duc de l’Aubespine sitting on a bench under the trees that lined the walkway in front of the National Convention headquarters. He wore a neatly tailored frock coat and britches in cream and olive silk, roughly ten years out of style. He was younger than she’d expected. Somehow, from all that she’d read and heard, she was expecting a hunched, elderly man poisoned by years of sinister experiments in darkened rooms. Instead he was tall and upright, his icy blue eyes alert as he watched the passing crowd. He’d abandoned the powdered wigs so popular with the aristocracy, and instead he wore a felt hat with an unobtrusive tricolore cockade pinned to his lapel. Ada smiled. It was something else to see a man like him attempting a republican disguise no less.
She steeled herself, then marched over with the brisk assura
nce of Camille when she was on the warpath.
‘Citoyen Aubespine. My name’s—’
‘I know who you are.’ The duc looked her over with an attentive eye. ‘Is Mademoiselle Laroche not joining us?’
Ada folded her hands in front of her. It felt as though the duc’s sharp gaze could see through the well-tailored, stylish dress she’d chosen, to the scared girl playing at dress-up who was hiding underneath. She wished Al was with her. He would know how to talk to someone like this.
‘Camille is busy. I’ve been sent to escort you to the meeting.’
The duc regarded her dispassionately. ‘I see. And am I meant to take it on trust that this time our charge will be safely waiting?’
‘Do you want the girl or not?’
‘I made it abundantly clear to Mademoiselle Laroche that if she fails to deliver on her commitments again there will be consequences.’
‘Which is why I’m here,’ Ada said. ‘Taking you to get what you asked for.’
The duc sighed, and slowly levered himself off the bench. ‘Ah, if only the rest of life were so direct and simple. Lead on.’
Legs shaking, she took the duc back towards the bridge, picking through the crowds. The parade had filled the Jardin des Tuileries only an hour earlier, pouring around a pyramid shaped to represent the monster of Atheism. The pyramid was surrounded by statues depicting Egoism, Ambition and False Simplicity. An effigy of Wisdom still smouldered where it had been burned earlier in the day. If Ada hadn’t been so tense, she would have rolled her eyes. Clearly the other monsters of Hypocrisy and Pomposity were lost on the Revolutionary Committee of Public Safety.
It was faster heading back to the Left Bank as they were moving with the tide of people being drawn to the Champs de Mars. James and Camille must have had enough time to get into position by now.
The crowd was dense at the foot of the mountain, singing raucous versions of the hymn of the Supreme Being and ‘Ça Ira’, their cockades pinned jauntily to their lapels and hats. Ada stopped at the base of the mountain. She could see figures dotted about it, but she couldn’t make anyone out.