by JJ Zep
huit
The banquet was held in a suite of rooms adjacent to the royal apartments. One of the rooms hosted banqueting tables buckling under the weight of the extravagant spread of food and drink laid out for the guests, another room hosted gaming facilities, another held several billiard tables. In another, an ensemble was set up and was playing a piece of music that was unfamiliar to me. The last of the rooms, adjacent to the orchestra was set up as a ballroom.
There must have been two hundred guests or more in attendance, ladies in elaborate, jeweled dresses and coiffured hair-dos, gentlemen in white britches, ornate vests and coats, some brimming with medals. Compared to them, I certainly looked the country bumpkin that de Mariny accused me of being.
I spotted the Duke in earnest conversation with Madame du Barry. He looked at me and gave me a smirk and a nod. The others at the banquet were complete strangers to me, except for the dark-haired woman who’d spoken to me earlier. She walked over to me now, looking rather beautiful in a powder-blue frock.
“Count Le Noir,” she said. “Quite lovely to see you.”
“Charmed, Madame,” I said.
“You could have least have put some effort into your attire,” she said under her breath.
“I apologize,” I said, “Doctor’s orders.”
“Doctor?”
“Yes, he advised me to wear something loose fitting and comfortable, and to avoid strenuous activity.”
“Well, hopefully, not all strenuous activity,” she said.
I didn’t quite get her meaning, but before I could ask for an explanation, a fanfare sounded and I looked up to see the royal couple at the top of the grand staircase. Marie Antoinette was blonde and beautiful, not quite Kirsten Dunst-cute, but pretty cute nonetheless. She wore a gold gown that was meant to outdo the other ladies in the room and succeed by some distance. Next to her, Louis XVI, dressed in white breeches and a red military style tunic complete with medals, looked a frump.
The king and queen ascended the staircase and the room held a collective breath until they reached the landing, then conversation resumed while the royals worked the room, meeting and greeting their subjects.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked the dark-haired woman, whose name I still didn’t know.
“Occasion?” she said.
“Yes, the banquet, what are we celebrating?”
“My dear Jacques, have you gone quite mad? You’ve attended enough les soirées de l’appartement, to know that no occasion is required. We’d soon run out of things to celebrate if that were the case, what with three soiree a week.”
“Three a week?”
“At least,” she said, then urgently “Allez, the king.”
The royal couple walked towards us, Marie looking much taller than Louis, particularly with her layered hairstyle. The woman beside me curtsied and I followed suit, making a clumsy bow.
“Jacques, Yolande,” Marie said, favoring us with a dazzling smile, “So glad you could attend.”
“Your majesties,” Yolande said, and I murmured something similar.
“Missed you at the hunt today,” Louis said. “de Mariny tells me you were unwell.”
“Merely a scratch, your majesty,” I said. “A small altercation in Paris.”
“Jacques,” Marie said. “You’ve been hurt?” A look of concern crossed her face and she touched my arm.
“An altercation in Paris, you say,” the king said. “Bloody peasants, getting way above their station these days. They’ll be howling for our blood next.”
“They’re just hungry, sire,” Marie said. “Hungry people do desperate things. Look at this spread. There’s enough here to feed half of Paris. In fact, I think that what remains from the banquet should be distributed amongst the poor. Let them eat some of this fine cake. Yolande, will you see to it for me?”
“Oh, course, your majesty,” Yolande said, bowing her head.
“Excellent,” Louis said, “I expect I shall see you on the hunt tomorrow, Jacques.”
I bowed my head and when I looked up, Louis and Marie had moved on. “I’d better mingle,” Yolande said. “Or people will begin to talk.”
As she walked away, I saw de Mariny approaching. “Jacques, old boy! He said, “Surprised to see you, here.” As he got closer he added, under his breath, “Especially as you’re dead.”
“You’re mistaken, Duke. As you can see, I am very much alive.”
“What I’d like to know is, how? That rapier thrust was deep and straight through the heart. You should be dead. I’d stake my reputation on it.”
“What reputation would that be, then?” I said.
de Mariny ignored the slight. “Still,” he said. “Your days are deeply numbered, old chap. My rapier may have somehow missed its mark, Madame Guillotine will be less forgiving.”
“And how do you propose to get me on the scaffold?’ I said.
“You’ll see, Le Noir. Your days are numbered. You and that Austrian whore.”
“Your ardor for Marietta seems to have cooled quite rapidly. Rejection is a bitter pill to swallow, is it not?”
“You’ll see,” he said simply.
neuf
The rest of the banquet passed in kind of a haze. Following the feast, there were card games and billiards and dancing, all lubricated by copious amounts of champagne and cognac. The king begged off after about an hour but Marie Antoinette played cards deep into the evening, insisting that I sit beside her and drawing looks from many of the guests, especially the Duke de Mariny, and Madame du Barry.
When I managed to excuse myself, I headed back to my room, where I found Ringo picking at his teeth with a silver fork. On the bed were the remains of a meal that he’d obviously pilfered from the banquet, although how he’d done that with so many people in the room, I had no idea.
“Erm, alright chief,” he said.
“I thought I told you to leave,” I said.
“And I thought I told you no,” Ringo replied.
“Look Ringo,” I said, “I don’t want any trouble.”
“You won’t get any strife from me, chief, just as long as you don’t cause a barney. Oh, and dibs on the crib.”
I couldn’t understand half of what Ringo said, but I kind of got the message that he had laid claim to the bed. I was just about to curl up on the floor when there was a light knock on the door.
It was Yolande. “What’s keeping you?” she demanded.
“Hey?”
“I don’t know what’s got into you, Jacques, but you really are being obtuse today. Come on.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me from the room, down the passage and into an antechamber. There was a portrait on the wall that I could just make out in the moonlight streaming through the window. Yolande approached the painting and ran a hand down the side of the frame. I heard a latch spring and the painting swung away from the wall revealing a darkened space behind. Yolande beckoned me to follow and I stepped into a hidden passage. With Yolande in the lead we moved along a twisting path that ended in what looked like a woman’s dressing room.
“Come on,” Yolande insisted and pulled me through a doorway that led into a large and beautiful room. It might have been a grand hall with its gold-inlaid walls, its massive crystal chandelier, its busts and paintings and intricately decorated ceiling. But the bed placed at the center identified it as a bedroom. And on that bed now reclined the queen of France.
“Jacques,” Marie said. “I thought you’d forgotten me.”
“Forgetting you would be outside the bounds of possibility, majesty.”
“What’s this majesty nonsense?” she said. “Am I not your Marietta any more?”
“Oh course, of course, majesty, that is to say, Marietta.”
“Oh, you silly goose,” Marie said, “Come over here where I can see you.” I approached cautiously. “Closer,” she giggled, “I won’t bite.”
I sat down on the bed, then lay down next to Marie. “Your queen commands a kiss,” she said, and so I
kissed her.
“I’ll be away then, highness,” Yolande said from the darkness.
“What is it with everyone today?” Marie said. “No, you won’t be away, you’ll join me and Jacques here on the bed.”
I lie on the bed with Marie Antoinette, the beautiful queen of France and one of the most famous women in history, in my arms. About to join us was the queen’s lovely lady-in-waiting. It would have been perfect if Ringo hadn’t chosen that exact instant to unleash one of his thunderous sneezes.
“Jacques,” Marie said. “Are you getting a chill? Why, you’re cold as a corpse! Under the covers with you, before you catch your death!”
I slipped under the covers with Marie, and after a while Yolande joined us, but for the rest of the evening I was thinking more about Ringo than about matters at hand, pleasant though they were, and I had another good reason to despise the Liverpudlian imp.
dix
“Open up! Open up, in the name of the King!”
I woke with a start and for a moment I was unsure of where I was. And then it came to me, I was back in my room, lying on the floor. It was dark in the room but I could hear Ringo’s prodigious snores from the bed.
“Le Noir! I won’t ask again. If we have to break this door down, you’ll be held liable for reparations.”
“Hold on, hold on,” I said, then hurried towards the bed where all the commotion seemed to be doing nothing to deprive Ringo of his sleep.
“Ringo!” I hissed, shaking him “Wake up!” The imp showed no sign of waking at all and simply upped the volume and threw in a few grunts for good measure.
“Right that’s it!” the voice from outside said. “We’re breaking in.”
“Wait,” I shouted, and flipped the bed covers over Ringo before rushing to the door and opening it.
Outside I found a captain, with a detachment of the king’s household guard. “Jacques Le Noir?” the captain barked.
“Yes?”
“I’m placing you under arrest.”
“On what charge?”
“Treason against the crown.”
“But…”
“Save it for the judge,” the captain said. He turned me around and one of his men shackled my hands. Just then there was a loud snort from the room.
“What was that?” the captain demanded.
“I didn’t hear anything,” I said, as Ringo unleashed a noise that sounded like a couple of rutting boars.
“Right,” the captain said. “Search the room.” Three soldiers jogged in and one of them approached the bed where Ringo still lay sleeping. The soldier tossed back the bed covers, and I braced myself for the uproar to come. But there was none, Ringo had disappeared.
“The room’s clear, sir,” one of the soldiers said, to which the officer offered a disbelieving grunt.
“I could have sworn, I heard something,” he said. “Still, we have the head pickle.”
I was marched down the passage while my fellow residents in the Versailles apartments stood in their doorways and cast disapproving looks.
Outside it was still dark, but the palace grounds were buzzing with activity. I saw men on horseback, with a large pack of hounds at their heels, barking and baying. No doubt this was the king’s party out for their daily hunt. As I was led towards a prison carriage, two of the riders approached us, and the soldiers immediately bowed their heads when they recognized their king.
“Count Le Noir,” Louis XVI said, “We can’t say that we are not disappointed,” while the man at his side, de Mariny, smirked in the darkness.
Afterwards, I was placed in the prison wagon and for the second time in as many days, I was trundled towards Paris a prisoner. This time however, our destination was the Bastille, which was actually quite comfortable compared to the previous prison I’d been in. The rooms were more like apartments than prison cells. Each held only a single prisoner and there were real beds with linen. The cell I was in even had a Persian rug on the stone floor, although the warder assured me that this was not the norm, and that it had been left behind by a former resident.
That afternoon I had a visitor. Marie was dressed as a simple bourgeois woman and wore a cape to hide her face. “Oh Jacques,” she said. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve spoken to Louis but he simply won’t budge. That snake Madame du Barry and her minion de Marigny have poisoned him against you. Oh, Jacques, what are we going to do?”
“Don’t worry, Marietta,” I said, “all will be well.”
“How? How will all be well?”
“I’ll think of something,” I assured her, although I felt a lot less confident than I sounded.
After Marie left, I considered my options. If de Mariny had gone so far as to have me arrested he was obviously confident of a conviction. And as I wasn’t guilty of any form of treason, he must have manufactured evidence and bought himself some witnesses to make it stick. All of this meant that I was likely to find myself in the embrace of Madame Guillotine quite shortly. Unless, of course, I could find a way out of here.
I briefly considered asking Ringo for help but quickly discounted that idea. He had no reason to help me, and me being locked up actually made his job easier. Besides, I hadn’t seen the imp since I’d left Versailles.
Almost right on queue, I heard a hiccup, and Ringo suddenly materialized in front of me. He looked the worse for wear and his black and yellow beanie clung precariously to his head.
“Alright, chief?” he slurred. “I’ve been out for a few bevies, right shit-faced me.” Then he broke into a tuneless chorus of a song that consisted solely of the words ‘here we go, here we go, here we go’, and then passed out and started snoring immediately.
onze
The legal system in cases of treason moved very swiftly in eighteenth century France. After only one day in the Bastille, and without the opportunity to prepare a defense or appoint a lawyer, I was hauled in front of the Assizes.
The trial, of course, was a sham, and the magistrate in his opening remarks declared that based on documentation presented to him by the crown, documentation that could not be made public for reasons of state security, he believed me to be guilty as charged. Thereafter a procession of witnesses was brought forward to testify as to my treasonous activities. I’m not sure if Count Le Noir did any of the things he was accused of, but if he did even half of them, he must have been a very busy man indeed.
The most damning evidence came from Madame du Barry, who hinted darkly without quite saying so, that Marie Antoinette was involved with me in a plot to pass state secrets to Austria.
Eventually, I was given the opportunity to speak in my own defense. And I was just about to rise in order to do so, when a dapper little man in a wig and a striped vest, stepped forward.
“I’ll speak for the accused,” he said.
“And you are?”
“Maximilien Robespierre, attorney-at-law.”
“Ah,” the magistrate said, “A Jacobin.”
“A practicing attorney with a perfect right to be heard by the court.”
“Not in this case, you’re not. You’ve been named in the evidence as a possible co-conspirator.”
“I’ve neither been arrested nor tried on any charge.”
“You deny that you have spent time in the company of the accused?”
“Of course not,” Robespierre said. “We were locked up together in the Conciergerie. It would have been difficult not to spend time in his company.”
“There you have it then,” the magistrate said. “Your petition is dismissed, consider yourself fortunate that you are not in the dock yourself.”
“May I at least plead mitigation of sentence?” Robespierre asked.
“No, you may not,” the magistrate said. “Now, away with you, before my patience wears thin.”
Robespierre walked away from the dock and shot me an apologetic glance as he left the courtroom.
“The accused will rise,” I heard the magistrate say, and when I looked back towards him I
noticed that a black square of fabric had been placed over his wig. I got slowly to my feet.
“Jacques Le Noir,” the magistrate continued. “I find you guilty of treason against the crown. The sentence of this court is that you be taken at dawn tomorrow to Place Louis XV, where you will be put to death by decapitation. May God have mercy on your soul.”
I was taken back to my cell where I found Ringo unraveling the Persian rug. Already the carpet had mostly been reduced to a pile of red twine on the floor.
“Alright, chief,” he said. “Hear you’re for the chop, tomorrow. No matter, still four to spare, eh.” He was right of course. I’d still have four of my allotted five lives remaining after the guillotine loped off my head tomorrow. I could simply find another host and continue my search for Commodus. But that felt like I’d be letting Jacques Le Noir down. That would mean de Mariny getting away with Le Noir’s murder, and walking away believing he’d won. That would mean Madame du Barry and de Mariny continuing to plot against the queen. These things, of course, were not my concern, but somehow they were important to me.
It also occurred to me that I might come to regret letting go of a life so cheaply. Given the amount of trouble I was likely to be in when I returned to hell, I’d probably come to regret it sooner rather than later. Suspending or even annulling an allotted life was not unheard of, especially in cases of gross misconduct, and I was certainly guilty of that right now.
No, I was determined to finish this mission with all five of my lives in tact. But being determined would not make it so and I had no idea of how I might get out of this mess. Ringo certainly wasn’t going to be any help. In fact, he told me that he planned to sit on the guillotine blade and ‘ride it all the way down.’
That evening I was offered a special meal, which I declined, much to the disgust of Ringo who announced soon after that he was ‘off for a few bevies’.