by Hunter, Seth
“Come into my office,” he called over to them. And to the blacksmith: “Jean-Baptiste, why don’t you take a little break so we can hear ourselves think?”
No introductions were made but this, Nathan gathered, was Le Mulet.
He was a short, stocky fellow of middling years with narrow eyes and a large nose, which gave him a slight resemblance to his namesake, though his ears were no bigger than normal. He wore a multi-layered cape, like a coachman’s, and a good pair of knee-length boots and a tall beaver hat lay on the seat next to him with the ubiquitous revolutionary cockade. He seemed genial enough, nodding and beaming at them over his pipe but the eyes measured them as if for coffins.
“So, Citizens, what can I do for you?”
“We have some friends in the Luxembourg,” said Imlay, “and we would like to get them out.”
The expression did not change.
“And what friends would they be?”
“Danton, Desmoulins, Thomas Paine and a few others. But Danton is the important one.”
Le Mulet nodded complacently over his pipe.
“I like Citizen Danton,” he said. “He is a man after my own heart. Desmoulins I am not so sure of. He looks like a catamite. And Paine, he is the American, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And your friend here?” He gestured with his pipe at Nathan. “Is he an American?”
“He is,” said Imlay.
“I like the Americans,” said Le Mulet. “I fought with them against the British, did he tell you?” With a jerk of his head at Imlay.
“He did,” Nathan acknowledged.
“But I am a man of business; did he also tell you that?”
“He did.”
“Good.” He stood up. “So you will want to see the catacombs.”
Chapter 29
the Empire of the Dead
Le Mulet led them across the yard to where the men were still unloading the skulls from the cart in a circle of smoke and flame. Beside them was a structure very like the guillotine but with an iron pulley at the top instead of a steel blade and a length of cable dropping down a shaft. The other end of the cable was wound round a wooden drum or windlass with long handles on each side operated by four men. As they heaved, a large metal cage emerged slowly from the shaft.
“Your carriage,” said Le Mulet, stopping the men from loading it with skulls. He opened a door in the side and invited them to step in.
“We can only take two at a time,” he said. “When you reach the bottom pull on the cord for us to raise it. I will join you there.”
He handed Nathan a lantern and signalled to the men at the windlass. They began to lower them slowly into the pit.
It was impossible to look down. The cage fitted the shaft almost as tightly as a cork, bumping with an unpleasant grating noise against the limestone rock. Nathan reflected that he was taking a great deal on trust and it was not a natural inclination. If they were stepping into a trap it was with wilful negligence.
Down, down for about fifty or sixty feet, then suddenly the walls fell away and they were dropping through a wide vault to land with a final jolt on solid ground. They opened the gate and stepped out. The cavern was about the size of a small chapel, dimly lit by a few lanterns and almost entirely lined by skulls.
“Dear God,” breathed Nathan, “what is this?”
“It is the Empire of the Dead,” said Imlay. “I have heard tell of it but I never imagined it was like this.”
Nathan remembered what Le Mulet had said about the signal rope and gave it a jerk. After a moment the cage began to ascend.
“We would look mighty foolish if he don’t join us,” he remarked. His voice sounded overloud and it echoed back mockingly in the great vault.
But after a minute or two they heard the grating of metal on rock and the cage reappeared with Le Mulet and a companion. At first Nathan thought he was a child, for he was no more than about four feet in height but as he stepped out of the cage they saw that he was a dwarf, or more correctly a midget, for he was perfectly proportioned. His face—which was not at all childlike—was distinguished by a small pointed beard and an oversized moustache extending several inches to either side of his cheeks, twisted and waxed at the ends, giving him something of the appearance of a cat with a handsome set of whiskers. He wore a red liberty bonnet, a quilted jacket and a pair of thigh-length boots like a cavalier—or, indeed, Puss in Boots. He carried a lantern in one hand, a coil of rope over his shoulder and—to complete the picture of roguish charm—a bandolier across his chest with three or four knives thrust through it, possibly of the kind designed for throwing.
“Bulbeau,” said Le Mulet by way of an introduction and the midget made them a bow that might have been ironic.
“We must go in single file,” said Le Mulet, “and watch your heads, it is low in parts.”
He led them off through a narrow tunnel in the side of the vault with Bulbeau bringing up the rear. This, too, was lined with skulls on both sides to a height of about five feet, the roof dripping water and the ground sloping down a little. After a few minutes they reached a fork but their guide strode confidently ahead without a pause and they struggled to keep up, their step unsure on the slippery path. They entered another cavern like the first and with the same circle of ghastly faces, like spectators in some demonic theatre. Nathan felt like an actor on a stage, the macabre audience grinning down at him as if they knew something he did not—his ending, perhaps; the drip of water was like a slow mocking clap. They carried on past nooks and crannies, galleries running off to left and right and once a pit. Nathan stooped, lowering his lantern, but could not see the bottom. He had no stone to hand but formed a ball of spittle in his mouth and let it drop, watching the silver bubble drifting through the beam of light into a universe of darkness. Le Mulet called and he moved on, Imlay stumbling behind, muttering, and sometimes cursing. Fewer skulls now and not so neatly stacked, some had rolled in the path. Le Mulet kicked them aside.
“Why are there no bones?” Nathan asked.
“There are bones,” Le Mulet replied. “We throw them down the pits. Be the devil’s own job to put them back together again on Resurrection Day.” His laughter did a drum roll off the walls.
So why stack the skulls, Nathan wondered. Not for God’s convenience. Perhaps it was part of the contract with the Commune, in case the relatives should ever want to see them. He almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of it. How to find father, mother, sister, brother; husband, wife . . . or lover . . . in this faceless multitude? Who was count or commoner, saint or sinner in the Empire of the Dead?
The floor was sloping up and they were sloshing through running water, deep enough to flow over their boots. No more skulls. Strangely Nathan missed them, fearing they were venturing where even the dead would not. The walls narrowed and the ceiling dipped in parts. Nathan crouched, shambling forward like an ape or a cave bear, one hand raised with the lantern but more blinded than aided by the light. He hit his head hard on the roof; put up a hand and felt blood. But Le Mulet did not pause and he had to hurry to catch up. They stumbled out into another cavern larger than the others they had seen, the walls receding into darkness. The floor was uneven and littered with rocks, some as large as boulders and looking very like trolls in the lantern light. Nathan veered a little off track and peered up to what appeared to be a glimpse of sky far above. It was night but nothing like as dark as in the caves.
“It’s just a shaft,” said Le Mulet. “Come.”
But then as Nathan turned away he saw something else, draped across one of the boulders. He thought at first it was a bundle of rags but he raised the lantern again and saw that it was a body.
He took a few steps closer, regardless of the Mule’s muttered oath. No ancient cadaver this. Death had filed a much more recent claim and violently too. It lay on it
s back across its chosen tombstone, limbs grotesquely contorted, the head thrown back so that from Nathan’s perspective it was upside down and ghastly in the lantern light; one eye staring, the other a blackened pulp, mouth gaping as if in one final scream for life. A man, probably quite young when he was alive. Had he fallen down the shaft? Then Imlay was beside him with his lantern, doubling the light, and Nathan saw the gash in the dead man’s throat and the black blood matted on his chest.
Le Mulet came back to see what they were staring at. He made a tutting noise. “They keep doing this,” he said.
Nathan stared at him and felt hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat.
“They throw them down the quarries. We have complained about it to the Convention. They chuck so many down there it gets choked up with them.”
“They?” Nathan queried. “Them?”
“The mob. Anyone they take a mind to.”
This could have been him, Nathan thought, if he had not been saved by Imlay the first day he came to Paris. He looked up and saw the gleam of moonlight on cloud.
“Come,” said Le Mulet again, with a firm hand on his shoulder this time. “Someone may look down and see the lights.”
They entered another tunnel, wider now and certainly man made, the stones chipped and scoured by tools, the floor level. Small niches, even grottoes had been cut just above head height. In one there was the stump of a candle, in another a religious statue. They reached a crossroad. Le Mulet turned right; then left. They would never find their way back without him. The ground was running water again, the air fouler than it had been. Nathan sniffed to draw attention to the fact.
“Sewer,” said Le Mulet shortly.
Nathan thought of his égoutier Philippe—the failed footpad—and thought how extraordinary it would be if he met him down here. But the égoutiers were not the only denizens of the Paris sewers.
Nathan heard the rats before he saw them, the squeaking alarums in the dark. Then they were scurrying at his feet, running at him along the walls, even upside down on the roof. A brief glimpse of sleek, wet fur, black eyes in the lantern light and a frightened, vicious squealing. He kicked, nearly lost his footing and they were behind them, vanishing into the black hole.
Le Mulet had not paused. Nathan plunged after the dark, squat figure which almost filled the passage ahead . . . and then suddenly they were in another cavern—but very different from the others.
“Christ!” He heard Imlay exclaim behind him with more fear in his voice than wonder.
It was a chapel—but what a chapel. Nathan raised the lantern high and felt the hairs lift on the nape of his neck. There the altar and the pews, there the candles and christening font. But no Christian had worshipped here. The Christ hung inverted on his cross, suspended in an eternity of pain, the eyes that should have been raised to heaven gazing down on the empty pews. And at the altar a darker figure presided. Nathan arced the light to expose the face of the Beast, horned and hairy, teeth bared in a welcoming grin. Nathan stepped back with a muttered oath, almost dropping the lamp, darting a glance to left and right, thinking to see shapes rushing at him from the gloom, of demons or of men. His hand grasped the hilt of his sword.
And the Mule slapping his thigh and filling the chamber with his barking laugh.
“What, sabreur, would you use a blade to prick the Devil?”
“What in God’s name is it?” demanded Imlay. He seemed badly shaken.
“Nothing in God’s name. Satan holds dominion here.” Le Mulet held the lamp to expose the date carved into the beam above the dangling crucifix. 1348. “The year of the Great Plague. God could not save them, or would not, so they turned to Satan.”
“It was so long ago?” Nathan looked around, marvelling.
“Well, others might have used it since. The candles are not so old, even if the Devil is.”
He set his lantern upon the edge of the stone font and sat down in a pew, putting his feet up—as much at home as he had been in the forge.
“The Black Mass,” said Imlay, in a hushed voice. Almost worshipful. He looked mesmerised: half repulsed, half drawn towards the figure of the Beast.
Now Le Mulet was opening a cupboard in the wall, taking out a black bottle and four silver chalices. He pulled the cork, poured wine into each. Offered one to Imlay who shook his head, fear in his eyes.
“What? ’tis not Communion wine, imbecile. Think I’d drink that piss? Me, to worship the Devil? Bollocks! I worship no one.” He waved his hand at the altar, spilling wine. “ ’Tis all one to me. Plaster saints or demons.”
“Then why bring us here?”
“Oh it is one of my little hideaways; where I keep my wine—and other things. Come, ’tis good burgundy.” Reluctantly Imlay took the chalice and passed another to Nathan. Le Mulet raised his to the ceiling, looking up above the dangling Christ. “And above us—the Luxembourg.”
They looked up at the ceiling.
“What part of the Luxembourg?” demanded Imlay.
“At one time it was a chapel. To a different god.”
“At one time?”
“When this was built.” He indicated the room they were in. “It was the chapel crypt.”
“But the palace was not built then,” Imlay corrected him, “at the time of the Black Death.”
“No. But a chateau stood on the same site. The Chateau de Vauvert. You cannot fault me on the history of Paris, my friend. Above or below the ground.”
“So what is up there now?”
Le Mulet heaved himself to his feet. “Come. I will show you.”
They stood uncertainly, exchanging wary glances, as he crossed to the altar and ducked behind the effigy of the Beast. But now they saw that what they had taken for a dark recess was in fact a black velvet curtain. With a mocking bow he held it aside and invited them to enter.
Nathan went first. A row of stone steps leading upwards, bending to the right. He advanced cautiously holding the lantern before him, his hand on the hilt of his sword, vaguely aware that Le Mulet was playing him for a fool but not sure quite how or why. But when he negotiated the bend in the stair he confronted a wall of rock. Or rather a wall of rocks, for the individual stones were fitted together in the manner of a dry stone wall in England.
He retraced his steps to where Le Mulet waited, smiling.
“My men built it,” he said. “I did not wish for anyone to wander into my den. Come, let us talk.”
They followed him back around the altar and sat again among the pews. Bulbeau still had his feet up drinking his wine, directly under his dangling Saviour. Le Mulet proceeded to give them a history lesson.
“When they were building the Luxembourg for Marie de Medici they must have discovered what lay in the crypt. But for some reason they did not destroy it. Perhaps someone wished to continue the tradition of Devil worship. The Medici herself, perhaps; I have heard she was something of a she-devil. Or perhaps she thought it an amusing diversion, something to show her guests after dinner. But for whatever reason, it was left as it is now—and the entrance concealed.”
“So what is up there now?” asked Nathan.
“A theatre,” said Le Mulet.
Of course, thought Nathan. It would be. This was Paris.
“How do you know that?”
“Because we went up to have a look. Two years ago, when it was still a royal palace. Disused. We came up under the stage—in the room where they used to keep the costumes. They were still there, hanging from the rails, covered in dust.”
“But you don’t know what it is being used for now?” Nathan pressed him.
By way of a reply, Le Mulet dug in his pocket and produced a notebook and a pencil. He licked the lead. “So, what do we require? One: to discover what is on the other side of the door.”
Neither of them respond
ed but he wrote it down.
“Two: removal of rocks. Yes?” He looked at Nathan.
Nathan nodded carefully. They might have been discussing a building contract.
“Three: access to the prisoners.”
“How can that be arranged?”
“Well, one could go up and find them.” Le Mulet jerked his head at the ceiling. “But it is probably better that we have someone already in the prison. Someone who can lead them to the tunnel. So,” he wrote it down, “accomplice in prison.”
“I may be able to help with that,” said Imlay quietly.
Nathan looked sharply at him. But it would keep for later.
“Very well,” said the Mule. “I leave that to you.” He closed the notebook. “So, all that remains is the price.”
Chapter 30
Betrayed
It was late on the night of the fourteenth day of Germinal but smoke rose from the chimneys of the new workshops in the gardens of the Tuileries and lights still burned in the upstairs rooms of the Pavillon d’Égalité. The twin cannon at the entrance were loaded with grape and the guard had been doubled. Messengers came and went. The atmosphere in the streets was tense. Tomorrow would be the fourth day of the trial and Danton was still challenging the authority of the court.
A little before midnight the trial judge, Fouquier, was observed crossing the gardens and entering the West Wing of the palace between the two cannon and their flaming torches. He mounted the Queen’s Stair and was admitted into the room at the top where the Committee of Public Safety met. Only three members were present. Robespierre, Saint-Just and Couthon in his wheelchair. The Triumvirate. Nothing like a quorum, though, and no minutes were kept. While the four men talked a faint breeze arose from the northeast. It rustled the dead leaves in the gardens and stirred the new growth they had until lately concealed. As Fouquier left—a little after midnight—it began to rain.
It rained throughout the night. It was still raining at break of day as Imlay, Nathan and Le Mulet huddled in the shelter of the forge and gazed bleakly out across the deserted floor of the quarry to where the pulley stood draped in tarpaulin, reminding Nathan uncomfortably of the guillotine when he had first seen it on Christmas Eve.