by Kat Dunn
‘We know how to do this,’ said Guil. ‘Surely we can do it now.’
Cause a distraction – snatch Al.
‘But look at the crowd! It’s huge. How will we get away?’ asked Ada.
A smile spread across Camille’s face.
Ada knew that look.
‘Guil, Ada, how do you fancy some role play?’
A matching grin lit their faces.
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
13
Place de la Révolution
Crouching by the foot of the bridge, Ada pinched her cheeks, scraping her nails into her skin until it smarted and tears prickled her eyes. Then she rumpled her dress, draped her shawl unevenly around her shoulders and pushed her broad-brimmed hat back so it hung from its ribbon against her shoulders. Finally she shook out her mass of natural curls that other women would spend hours burning into their hair with fire irons, pulling it from its pins until she looked the picture of distraught femininity.
‘My baby! My baby!’
She flung herself into the crowd jostling around the guillotine, clutching at sleeves and skirts.
‘Have you seen my boy? René! René! They took him!’
A stir rippled around her. Cutting a chaotic dash around the square, she circled closer and closer to the line of tumbrils.
‘Please!’ She grabbed at the sleeve of a well-dressed woman. ‘Have you seen a little boy? Dark hair, only three – please, someone took him!’
The woman shook her off with a look of disgust. Some people were sympathetic, others shocked, most casting around them searching for the phantom child. All causing enough commotion so that when she reached the guards, they were already watching her with interest. As was Al. At the last moment she shifted her weight, catching the toe of one foot on the ankle of the other, and sent herself tipping – forcing a guard to dive forwards to catch her.
Sagging in his arms, she looked up at him, blinking her wide eyes, tears running down her cheeks.
‘Citoyenne, what seems to be the matter?’ he asked.
He had a kind face, with a broken nose and patchy stubble. Ada almost felt bad for the trouble she was going to get him in. Almost.
She clutched at his jacket.
‘Oh, please, help me! I was here with my son, but someone snatched him, I’m sure of it and – oh!’
She burst into another flood of tears. The guard lifted her up and patted her shoulder. She could feel Al staring and was careful to studiously ignore him.
‘Where did you see him last?’
She sniffed, drawing her shawl around her throat.
‘Oh, monsieur – citoyen – I don’t rightly know. I think we might have been by the river … or perhaps it was in the Jardin…’
He glanced at the other guard, and the line of tumbrils. ‘You look awfully young to have a child…’
She blushed. ‘Oh – he’s barely more than a baby…’
The guard from the guillotine interrupted, gesturing for Al to be delivered to the platform. He shot her a frantic look as he was unchained and manhandled out of the tumbril. Allowing herself to catch his eye for a moment, she gave an imperceptible wink.
‘My boy – I have to find him!’
‘If you’ll just wait, citoyenne,’ said the kind-faced guard, ‘I can send someone to help.’
‘No – I can’t leave him out there.’
The guards had already turned back to Al, re-securing the back of the tumbril and pushing him up the ladder to the scaffold.
Walking hastily back down the line of tumbrils, Ada’s hand closed lightly around the key she’d lifted. Guil was waiting at the end of the line, still in his soldier’s uniform. She brushed past him and let her hand press against his. The key for the prisoners’ chains passed between them smoothly and she smiled to herself.
Now she needed her crossbow, and a good vantage point.
Beside the Guillotine
In the heaving crowd of spectators, Camille edged her way to the front, where blood slicked the wooden scaffold and dripped onto the sawdust and straw below. A line of women were knitting and singing ‘Ça Ira’, and next to them a short woman was studiously carving a wooden death mask. From a row of baskets came the sightless stare of severed heads.
Al was hauled onto the platform.
A boo echoed round the Place de la Révolution, with pieces of rotten fruit following to land with wet plops around his feet. He was stripped of his usual sneer, eyes searching the crowd with anxiety plain on his face. He’d seen Ada, then. Good. Camille would expect him to play along, no matter how much he might have had to drink.
Silently, she drew the vizard mask out of her pocket. It was hot and smelled of ashes, but it would do what she needed. A little showmanship, a little misdirection.
She unhooked the pistol from her belt, flexing her fingers around its grip.
Everything could go wrong. Or it could go right. It was the risk they took. The choice they made. All of them. And she trusted all of them, her battalion.
James was wrong, she didn’t trust the wrong people.
On the scaffold Al had been forced to his knees, the executioner’s hand on his shoulder pushing his head between the jaws of the headlock.
It was now or never. She was Camille Laroche of the Battalion of the Dead. And she was so far from finished.
With a cry, she launched herself onto the platform, gun aimed at the executioner.
‘Release him now!’
She pulled back the cock.
‘Cam – behind you,’ yelled Al.
Camille spun on her heel in time to see Comtois leap onto the scaffold, a pistol in his hand. She whipped hers up, jumping back a few paces, as he raised his. They circled, held at the point of each other’s gun. When Comtois finally stilled, he was standing by Al. He raised his hand and the executioner snapped closed the lock, securing Al in place.
‘It’s over, Citoyenne Laroche!’ called Comtois. ‘You cannot manipulate and trick your way out of this. Your associate was rightfully arrested and convicted.’
‘Is that so? I saw that sham trial.’
‘You really expect me to believe you care about that?’
‘Not my problem what you think about me,’ she said.
‘Oh, but it is. You’ve pulled stunt after stunt, endangering this Republic at every turn. It stops here.’ He cocked his pistol and took a determined step forwards. Camille’s eyes flickered between Comtois and Al. ‘You were never going to help us get the girl, were you? It was a scam.’ His voice dropped as he came closer.
‘You’re right, we weren’t going to give you the girl.’
But that doesn’t mean I’m helping the Royalists. Cam caught herself before the words came out. She’d been railing against the government – against the whole Revolution – since her parents’ deaths, but it was pointless. It didn’t change what happened, and now she’d lost the memory of the people she thought they’d been. Her anger hadn’t changed anything. The past had only eaten her up inside, pushing her further away from the people she still had. The people who mattered. Her family.
‘And I’m not going to let you take my friend either.’
Camille took a breath, steadying the aim of her gun.
‘Too late,’ sneered Comtois.
His gun fired just as Camille squeezed the trigger on hers.
Three things happened almost at once.
A hot line of pain painted itself across her shoulder. She staggered back, clutching at the wound where the bullet had grazed her.
Comtois sank to his knees, hands pressed against his chest. Around the crossbow bolt protruding between his ribs.
The lock on the guillotine burst into a rain of splinters and hot metal as Camille’s bullet found its target.
She’d shifted at the last second, making Comtois’s bullet miss its mark by a fraction, and her own free Al.
He yanked himself out of the headlock. Camille darted forwards, pressing a knife into his hands.
‘Get free, quick,’ she instructed, then spun to meet the first guard, who’d shaken off his shock and launched himself at her.
She dispatched him with a well-timed boot and used his own momentum to spin him off the stage and into the crowd. Another guard attacked, but Al had cut his bindings, and ducked at the last moment before the guard reached him so the man went tumbling over and rolled off the stage after his comrade.
They stood back to back, gun and knife poised as more guards advanced – when the horses leading the tumbrils behind them reared with a whinny, iron shoes flashing. The crowd shrieked. The rest of the horses spooked at the noise and the guards grabbed at their reins and fell under kicking hooves. Another shout went up from the crowd and Camille glanced at the tumbrils. For a moment, it looked as if the rearing horses had broken apart the carts as they kicked and bucked in the harness – then she realised what she was seeing. The back of the last tumbril had been unlatched, and the prisoners, unchained, were pouring from the cart. Camille grabbed Al’s arm and pulled him off the scaffold. Prisoners had flooded the square scattering this way and that. Two of the horses had broken free and were bolting through the crowd.
Cam and Al dug their way through the swarm of people, all elbows. But now the vizard marked Camille out. A hand snagged in her collar and she hissed and twisted like a cat. Another hand hooked Al’s arm and he cursed in despair.
‘Say nothing,’ said a familiar voice.
Guil, in his soldier’s uniform, had his hands on them both. Wordlessly, he marched them out of the chaos. Camille’s heart was hammering, willing no one to look at them as they passed between stalls selling nuts and oranges and souvenirs of the executions.
Then Guil was pulling them sideways down a flight of steps to the riverbank. They slithered on slimy steps and ducked under the bridge’s arch.
Al swore a stream.
‘Cutting it a bit bloody fine, don’t you think?’
‘Lovely to see you too,’ snapped Camille, but she was grinning.
‘Be quick,’ said Guil, stripping off his uniform jacket and bicorn hat and handing them to Al. ‘Put those on.’
He complied, still shaking with adrenaline. Camille untied her vizard, tucking it back inside her coat and untying her hair so it fell loose around her face. Once their clothes were swapped, Guil disappeared as quickly as he’d come.
‘Come on.’ She reached for Al’s hands. ‘We’re not safe yet.’
14
The Abandoned Cordeliers Convent
Ada wondered how many times she could throw up from anxiety before her body was done. She’d fired her crossbow bolt as planned, watched Comtois tumble off the scaffold, watched Camille and Al run, seen Guil unlock the tumbrils to release the prisoners. She’d thrown up once before Cam had jumped on the scaffold and once after she’d launched herself back into the crowd. The waiting was the worst. Waiting and not knowing.
The convent was their last unused safe house. The only place they could be sure was secure. The sun was high overhead when Ada arrived, giving the sandstone a peaceful, honey-coloured glow. Camille was pacing the length of a cloister, in her blood-encrusted clothes. Al had found an upturned crate to sit on, looking pale and shaken, Guil was calmly reading a news-sheet.
Ada crossed the overgrown garden almost at a run, and grabbed Camille, kissing her as if she’d never stop. Camille said nothing, just held her close and kissed her back.
When they parted, Ada rounded on Al.
‘Don’t you ever make us have to do that again,’ she snapped. Then flung her arms around him and squeezed him in a tight hug.
When she pulled back, Al look startled, but quickly recovered, straightening his borrowed clothes.
‘I assure you it wasn’t my idea of a good time.’
‘I came for you, didn’t I? Will you believe me now?’ Camille asked almost softly.
Al looked between the three of them. ‘Your plans are really, incredibly terrible, I want you to know that.’
A grin spread across Ada’s face as she unpinned her hat. ‘That was quite fun, wasn’t it? Horrible and scary, but quite fun.’
‘I do miss some of our … wilder escapades,’ agreed Guil.
Al looked at them in horror. ‘You’re all mad. Wait – where are the other two? The Englishman and the science project?’
Camille folded her arms, her mouth a tight line. Then, haltingly, she spoke, summarising what had happened with James for Al, and Ada added in her own details of her time with the duc. When they were done, Al let out a low whistle.
‘That lying bastard. I knew I didn’t like him.’
Ada rolled her eyes. ‘You never suspected a thing. None of us did.’
‘He was good. He played us all.’
‘Poor Olympe,’ said Guil quietly.
Al tilted the bicorn at a rakish angle. ‘Not to hog the pity party, but what are we going to do about me?’
Ada blinked. ‘About you?’
‘He’s right,’ said Camille. ‘Al can’t stay in Paris. He won’t be safe anywhere in France. They’ll know it was us who got him out.’
Some of Ada’s elation faded. There was always the next job, the next problem to solve.
‘Al, how’s your English?’ asked Camille.
‘That depends on whether you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking.’
Camille looked at him. ‘Staying here’s no better plan.’
‘But why that? Why can’t I go somewhere warm and pleasant? I hear Italy is lovely.’
‘His English is quite fluent,’ added Guil. ‘I’ve heard it.’
‘Sorry,’ cut in Ada, ‘what are you talking about?’
Al pulled his hat down so it was almost covering his eyes. ‘She’s sending me to England after our deceitful friend.’
‘We’re all going,’ said Camille. The other three turned to look at her. ‘None of us will be safe here now, and this is my wrong to right. I promised Olympe I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. I’m not breaking that promise. And,’ her voice faltered, ‘I’ve come too close to losing you all to leave you behind.’
Her eyes flickered to Ada.
As soon as Camille had explained herself, a strange sort of calm had stolen over Ada. Camille was right. They’d made promises. They had principles to defend.
And there was something only she could do.
‘I’m not going.’
Camille’s eyes widened in confusion. ‘What? Why? Are you— Did I do something wrong?’
‘No – I just – I understand now. I know why you didn’t pick me—’
‘Didn’t pick you? Ada, I—’
‘And I didn’t pick you either. Because it’s not about that – we’re not about that. Because I don’t need rescuing, and neither do you. I trust you.’
Camille opened and shut her mouth a few times, and Ada could swear she saw the sheen of tears in her eyes.
‘I trust you too, Ada. With my life.’
Ada took a deep breath.
‘I know what I need to do. I’m going back to my father.’
‘What?’ Guil frowned.
‘The duc implied he was working on something bigger to restore the monarchy. We need to find out what they’re doing and help the people who’ve ended up in the duc’s hands this time. I can spy on him. If I go back to my father, tell him I made a mistake about you, that he was right all along – he’ll take me back in.’
‘You think he’ll buy it?’
Ada pursed her lips. ‘All too easily.’
‘It’s risky…’ Camille’s mouth twisted down as she thought it through.
‘It’s where I can be useful. I want to take the risk.’
Camille hesitated, then nodded and squeezed Ada’s hand. ‘Rip them apart.’
She grinned. ‘With pleasure.’
‘I’m coming with you, Ada,’ said Guil.
Ada gave a tight smile in thanks.
Guil fetched some of the supplies they’d stashed in the garret before. Al changed
clothes and gave Guil back his uniform. Camille pocketed the money. Ada paused by the window overlooking the city. It seemed impossible that she’d been shot down in a hot air balloon over the prison only days ago. And was now agreeing to – suggesting – another ridiculous, risky plan.
But it was the right thing to do. She saw what was happening and she was going to do something. It felt good.
She caught Camille’s arm as she passed, pulling her in and kissing her lips.
‘Be safe. Just because there’s no guillotine in England doesn’t mean it’ll be trouble-free.’
Camille leaned into the kiss as if it was the most important thing in the world.
‘I’m coming back. I promise.’
‘You’ve made a lot of promises.’
‘And I’m going to keep them. I’ll find Olympe and come home.’
Ada rested her forehead against Camille’s. ‘I trust you, Camille Laroche.’
Camille smiled and took a step back, letting their hands part.
‘I trust you, Ada Rousset.’
With a final goodbye to the battalion, Ada fixed her hat again and pulled her shawl around her shoulders. The weather was as unforgivingly bright and clear as it had been all day. She let herself out onto the street and headed up the quay towards the Marais to look for her father.
It was time to make her choice.
Postscript
A Ship in Le Havre Port
28 Prairial Year II
The creak and groan of wood and ropes lulled Camille as the ship pulled out of the harbour. She wore a heavy travelling cloak over her sprigged muslin dress; it might have been the height of summer, but grey clouds lowered over the Breton coast and a chill wind whipped the waves. Another bad harvest to come.