Fires of Delight

by Vanessa Royall

  That was difficult to do in a time of crisis, but she made the effort, reducing the problem to its simplest components.

  She and Royce were both being sought in Paris.

  To be safe, they ought to flee France.

  But if they were caught during flight, they would be accused of trying to reach foreign shores in order to subvert the revolution therefrom.

  And Royce was not fit enough for hard travel.

  Down a corridor in the glittering Tuileries, just lounging casually against a wall, Selena saw death. He grinned at her, and winked. Death on a prison block in Paris? Or death in some unnamed village in the green countryside?

  Did it matter which?

  “We’re going to try,” she told Pierre Sorbante. “Can you arrange things so that Royce is brought down to the Seine, where the riverboats are?”

  “Yes, I think so, but—”

  “Please do it. And disguise him as an old man. As a very old man.”

  Sorbante regarded her quizzically. “I don’t know if he’ll like that. He is rather vain, you know.”

  Selena smiled. “You just tell him to do as I say, and I’ll reward him well when I have the chance.”

  For the first time since they’d begun speaking, the revolutionary displayed a glimmer of genuine amusement. “I suspect that might convince him to obey,” he said. “You will flee tonight, of course?”

  “No. Tomorrow at mid-morning, when everyone is about. We shall hide in plain sight.”

  “Where have you been?” asked Princess Francesca, somewhat suspiciously, when Selena appeared in her quarters.

  “I…I needed some time alone. To collect myself. But I am all right now.”

  The readiness with which the younger woman believed this deceit shot a stab of guilt through Selena’s conscience. If what Sorbante had told her was true—and she had no reason to doubt him—Francesca’s neck, as well as those of her aunt and uncle, were destined for the guillotine’s caress.

  There is nothing I can do, she told herself. Royce and I must survive.

  But what of Francesca and William? her conscience demanded. Is their love any less precious than your own?

  No, but what can I do about it?

  You think you are so clever, contriving your own plan of escape! You might at least try and fashion a ploy for her.

  It is out of my hands.

  Francesca was called to dine with her family. Selena, of course, remained behind, eating from a huge tray of cold meats, cheeses, and vegetables that had been brought to her. There was even a bottle of Rhine wine. This largesse, too, made her feel guilty. Francesca was taking care of her, but she was prepared to abandon her young friend.

  Fend for yourself, cherie. The world is cruel.

  Sipping the wine, sitting near the window and watching darkness fall upon Paris, Selena remembered all those who had helped her in life.

  Will Teviot, who had saved her from Darius McGrover in the Highlands long ago.

  The common seaman, Slyde, who’d smuggled her aboard a ship in Liverpool. True, he hadn’t done it so much out of charity as lust, but it had cost him his life.

  Dick Weddington, the American spy.

  Sean Bloodwell.

  Royce.

  Even Martha Marguerite, and Rafael, Jean Beaumain’s friend.

  So many had helped her during times of trouble and need, perhaps Davi the Dravidian most of all. He was long dead, but the remembered power of his beliefs stirred again, and she felt him alive and moving within the borders of her soul, dark and deft and wise.

  “Do you feel the cross at your neck, Selena?” he asked her gently.

  Yes.

  “Take it off and read the words.”

  Selena did.

  “There you have your answer,” said Davi, departing.

  Liberté. Égalité. Fraternité.

  There is a lot of room for friendship in three words.

  “I’ll try to think of something,” Selena said aloud.

  Francesca returned from dinner, her face white as the tear-stained linen handkerchief she held. Selena got up and rushed over to her. “What is it? What has happened?”

  It took quite a while to bring the story out. A man—Sorbante—had informed Uncle Louis that very afternoon that the safety of the royal family could no longer be guaranteed. Riots had broken out in Paris and throughout the provinces—riots fomented by the radicals and Robespierre. Convents and monasteries were being sacked, priests and nuns mocked, tormented, and slaughtered like so many pigs. Men and women were copulating on the altars of cathedrals. Châteaux were afire, their owners hanged from trees. The pavingstones of Paris had been torn up for use as barricades, behind which mobs of workers stoned the authorities.

  “And,” concluded Francesca, “Uncle Louis has been advised that he might begin to give some thought to his own death.”

  So it had come to that. “Francesca,” said Selena, “please take me to the Queen.”

  “But she has retired to her bed. She is distraught.”

  “Just take me to her.”

  “Why? There is nothing you can—”

  “There is nothing I can do for her, true. But I can try to save your life, and that is what I am about to do.”

  Pomp and panoply are the most fickle, the least loyal of fair-weather friends, and the bedchamber of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, was a contrast between grandeur and despair. The glory was all silk and softness, gilt and silver and bronze; frailty belonged to flesh alone.

  The Queen lay face down on her extravagantly canopied bed. Her pillow was wet, but she had cried herself out for the present. A gaggle of ladies-in-waiting surrounded her, looking impotent and uncomfortable.

  “Her Majesty does not wish to be disturbed,” said one of them to Francesca.

  “You just leave,” replied the princess, showing a steel that Selena admired. “This is a private family matter.”

  The women did so uncomplainingly, with relief in fact. There are few things less pleasant than to attend the suffering of another and be able to do nothing about it. Moreover, each of those ladies, who had led a grand, privileged life at court, had begun to wonder if the price they might have to pay—death—made such a life worthwhile. They withdrew readily, if not gladly.

  “Aunt Marie,” said Francesca, “my friend wishes to speak with you.”

  In spite of her predicament, the Queen turned and looked at Selena with a touch of curiosity. “You again? What was your name? I have forgotten.”

  “Selena MacPherson.” She rolled it on her tongue, proudly, as always. It was not her name itself, but the history of the name, the family, that made her pronounce it so.

  “Another Scot,” said the Queen, somewhat vexed. “The last Scot I befriended turned traitor on us.”

  She was obviously referring to Royce Campbell, and once again Selena wondered about the degree of intimacy that had existed between Royce and Marie Antoinette. But this was certainly not the time to inquire about it.

  “My lady,” Selena began, probing for the words she had spun out in her mind, “I have learned of the conditions now besetting France, and the danger they pose to you and yours.”

  “So?” interrupted the monarch, sitting up on the edge of the bed. “I do not want your sympathy. Go away. If I must die, let it be with honor, not pity. His Majesty and I both feel that way.”

  This meeting was getting off on the wrong track. Now it was Selena’s turn to interrupt.

  “My lady, I can arrange for your niece to be transported safely to England. There is no need for her to perish, if in fact, anyone must perish at all.”

  Marie Antoinette regarded Selena for a long moment, then gave a scornful little laugh.

  “A nameless young thing like you?” she doubted. “What could you do? With your looks, what might you ever have done, seduction or attempted seduction excepted?” She made a loose gesture with her hand, as if dismissing Selena. “Child,” she addressed the princess, “do not trouble me with t
his feeble prattle now. You are not going anywhere.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Selena tried to fashion a rebuttal. She did not have to, for suddenly the princess declared, without heat but with absolute conviction: “Aunt, I am going. I trust this woman, who is my friend.”

  The Queen looked shocked, then horrified.

  “No, hear me out,” Francesca went on. “When I was stumbling over my tongue in Varennes, it was she who gave our captors an alias. My presence here in France is not generally known. And Selena is aware of how matters work in England—”

  Yes, indeed, thought Selena wryly. I was thrown out for such knowledge.

  “—and knows her way about. I shall go with her.”

  “My lady,” Selena pressed on, “I may look to you like one who is used to comfort and ease, and I confess that at times this was the case with me. But more often than not, I have had to deal with burdens that would have confounded many a man. And here I am alive to tell the tale.”

  “In any event, I am going with her,” Francesca declared. “Of what use is it if we all perish? If I reach England, I shall marry William as planned, and perhaps one day our son will be a King. Is that not worth a risk, I ask you?”

  Marie Antoinette, pressed thus to a facet of logic she understood very well, acquiesced. “Let it be done then,” she said. There were fresh tears in her eyes when she embraced her niece this final time.

  “Tell my story truly in days to come,” she said. “I was a woman. I was as weak as any man. But if I must die, it will be as a Queen, not some vagabond emigré growing old in alien lands, dreaming of what has been lost.

  “Go, both of you,” she said. “May God be with you.”

  24

  Sanctuary Deferred

  Gendarmes swarmed about the river piers. Where once they had gladly obeyed the King and protected the nobles, their bread was now buttered on the other side. They swore fealty to the revolution, wore the cockade, and were on the watch for any nobles foolish enough to try to escape Paris by boat.

  Selena knew that she would have to deceive them somehow.

  The regular boat down the Seine to Le Havre was preparing to leave. Passengers were boarding, but the captain and an officer of the police stood at the base of the gangplank, questioning all prospective passengers. There were few travelers this day, which troubled Selena, who had counted on a crowd to hide amongst. Moreover, although she checked the dock carefully, she could see no sign either of Royce or Pierre Sorbante.

  Selena and Francesca, dressed respectably but simply in togs of the petit bourgeois and carrying small bags, stood waiting near the gangplank. The captain, it appeared, was eager to be off. A portly, choleric man, he strutted nervously about. The police officer, however, was taciturn and observant.

  “You there,” he challenged the women. “What is your business? Do you wish to board or no?”

  “Yes,” said Selena, giving him the benefit of her smile and her eyes, “but we are waiting for our grandpère. He is to meet us here.”

  The officer squinted and examined Selena carefully, then Francesca. “Is that right?” he asked. “What are your names? Where are you bound? You wouldn’t be members of the nobility, would you?”

  “I resent the latter question, sir!” Selena said.

  It had been decided that she would do the talking, since Francesca’s Austrian-accented French was more noticeable than the remnants of her own Scots lilt. The officer spotted it nonetheless.

  “You’re a foreigner, are you not?”

  “I do resent that as well, citizen gendarme. My parents sent me to study for a time in England, years ago. I am Yolanda Fee of Provence, and this is my sister, Colette.”

  The princess nodded emphatically.

  “We go to take our grandpère to the coast. He is quite ill and requires the sea air.”

  Selena met his eyes all the while and contrived to look as innocent as possible, and just resentful enough of his questions to seem injured by them. If the man began interrogating Francesca, however, the game would become much more difficult.

  “And where is this illustrious grandfather of yours?” asked the officer suspiciously, looking about. “Or perhaps he is a figment of your imagination?”

  “Ready to leave in a few minutes,” advised the boat’s captain, ordering his crew to make ready for casting off.

  “You would be surprised,” the officer continued pointedly, “how many complicated stories I hear from people who are trying to leave the city. I admit, though, that a sick grandfather is a new one.”

  Royce, where are you? thought Selena. She had a momentary and extremely disquieting concern that perhaps she’d been gulled by Pierre Sorbante. What if this were all some monstrous treachery, with her as the victim? What if Sorbante, the revolutionary, had learned about Francesca and sought to have her captured? What if he’d been lying, and had known nothing of Royce’s whereabouts?

  What if Royce was dead?

  A desperate political situation in which numerous groups with conflicting ideas battled one another led inevitably to virtually trackless patterns of betrayal and intrigue.

  “You ladies boarding or not?” the irritated captain called out. “We’re leaving.”

  “Please wait just one more minute,” Selena pleaded.

  “You don’t say much, do you?” the officer asked, turning toward Francesca. “I don’t like the smell of this at all. Perhaps the two of you ought to come with me to the barracks. I suspect a long chat might produce some facts.”

  “Hold up there! Hold up, if you will!”

  It was Pierre Sorbante, moving slowly across the dock. Behind him, moving even more slowly on crutches, was a tall, bent figure in a cheap suit and a floppy shapeless hat that concealed his hair and a good portion of his face. Several days’ growth of scraggly whiskers, powdered to look lighter, obscured a strong jawline that no grandfather, however healthy, would have retained. It was Royce.

  “Grandpère!” cried Selena excitedly, so that both Royce and Sorbante would understand the ploy she had chosen. “Oh, Grandpère, I knew you’d arrive in time.”

  She rushed over to him and put her arms around him gently.

  “Grandfather?” whispered Royce. “I hope you are enjoying this, Selena.”

  “Shhh.”

  Taking her cue, Francesca also approached Royce and gave him a daughterly peck on his stubbled cheek. He gave her a sharp look; he had no idea who she was.

  Pierre Sorbante did, however, and for a long moment, as the revolutionary leader stood looking at the princess, Selena believed that her entire plan was about to fail.

  “Citizen Sorbante,” said the police officer, saluting smartly. “You know these people?”

  Another long, long moment, then: “Yes, I do. You may permit them to board.”

  Royce, with Francesca’s help, hobbled up the gangplank. Selena remained behind for a minute, and held out her hand.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Now it is you who are in danger. I understand the feeling. Soon I will be in your shoes. Good fortune, whatever the future brings.”

  He released her hand and smiled.

  “And you as well,” she said.

  Selena moved toward the boat, then turned. Sorbante had already begun to walk away.

  “Citizen, before I leave…” she called after him.

  He stopped and looked back at her. “Yes?”

  “Let me give you this,” she said, unfastening the gold chain and the cross from her neck. “It was meant for you, and it is a bit overdue, but I think Erasmus Ward would sleep more peacefully if he knew you had it.”

  “No, you keep it,” the man protested. “It has served its purpose, and you have worn it faithfully and well.”

  “I insist,” she said, walking toward him and pressing it into his hand. The moment was rich with meaning for them both, and tender.

  “It is not considered gallant to refuse the request of a lady,” said Sorbante, accepting the cr
oss. “But,” he added enigmatically, “when I have no more need of it, I shall see that it is returned to you.”

  “All aboard!” the captain shouted.

  “See to your man,” said Sorbante. “He is still very weak.”

  “I shall,” Selena promised. “Love has a way of making people strong.”

  Then they parted. Selena walked onto the boat, where “grandfather,” crutches at his side, had already been helped into a deck chair by Francesca. Ropes were loosened, knots unbound, and the boat drifted slowly away from the riverbank and out upon the waters of the Seine.

  Later she would shed her tears for Jean Beaumain, and there were many. Later she would regret the turn of events that had set Martha Marguerite, once her friend, against her. Later she would appreciate, with a shudder or two, all that had happened to her in this city of lights, the maelstrom into which she had been drawn, and out of which she had emerged richer than before, in the mysterious process by which every event in life makes one richer.

  Those things would come later.

  But for now, joined again with Royce, Selena added Paris to the list of special places in her heart.

  The journey to Le Havre took many days, since the boat stopped frequently along the way, either to take on passengers and goods or to off-load them. And at every stop, local revolutionaries would board to ascertain that enemies of the newly proclaimed Republic were not attempting to escape its authority. Royce had considerable money with him, should bribes be necessary—some things never change, no matter who is in power—but Selena kept him belowdecks when the boat was boarded. There, on a bunk in a dark cabin, out of the light, his beard growing longer and his face powdered white, he did indeed begin to resemble an older fellow.

  “Mature and dignified,” he proclaimed.

  “Rickety and decrepit,” laughed Selena.

  But while the boat was on the water, he spent his time on deck, resting in the sun and growing stronger every day.