I propped myself up with the crutch. I was reluctant to move too far from the entrance because I was sure Dagon’s agent, the Wild Boar, would be watching for me.
I waved away two children, one selling meat, another what looked like bread and cheese. A wild-haired woman sidled over and asked if I was interested in selling my coat. I shook my head and grunted a no, but I was aware that her eyes were watching me carefully, appraising me from head to foot.
“Will you sell me the boots?”
“Only boots I have.”
“I’ll give you a good price,” she said.
“Few francs would be nice, but I’d be barefoot.”
“Them boots—taken you far, have they?”
“Far enough.” I tried to keep my answers short. My French was excellent, though I occasionally used words that had gone out of fashion fifty years previously.
I watched her move to a stall where another woman, who looked like her mother or perhaps her older sister, was stirring a pot. They both turned to stare at me.
Had they seen through my disguise so quickly? I wondered what had given me away.
I glanced back toward the alleyway. A small crowd was coming through, mostly professional beggars, laughing and joking as they revealed strapped-up arms and legs or pulled off eye patches to expose the perfectly good eye beneath. When I looked back, the woman was standing before me again, a bowl of stew cupped in her hands.
I shook my head. “Much as I would like it…I cannot pay. And I’ll not swap my boots for it either.”
“Take it. No charge. Gift for an old soldier,” she said, pushing the bowl into my hands and turning away. “But if you do change your mind about the boots…” Her voice trailed off.
I looked into the bowl of oily gray liquid. It was filled with vaguely recognizable vegetables—onion, carrot—and an assortment of lumps that looked like nothing I’d ever seen before.
“If you have any respect for your stomach, you’ll not touch it. Might have le vautrin in it.”
Le Vautrin. Wild Boar.
Standing before me was a slender, shaggy-haired young man. It was impossible to assign an age to him: he could have been anywhere from fourteen to eighteen, with a mop of curly back hair shoved under a knitted hat that was more holes than wool. None of his clothes fit—his pantaloons were too short and had clearly been made for a man twice his girth; his shirt was too long and missing every button—but I noticed that he wore a fine pair of army boots not dissimilar to mine. His eyes were an astonishingly bright blue, and his nose crooked slightly to one side, as if it had been broken and badly set.
“You have something for me?” he said, settling back against the wall. I glanced sidelong at him; although his body was still, I noticed his eyes were constantly moving.
“I think you have me confused with someone else,” I said cautiously.
“We both know a man who stinks of fish and yet is not a fisherman. This is the same man who bought me these fine boots, probably in the same place he got yours. Told me I’d not be able to run in sabots.” There was a touch of the country in his voice.
Satisfied, I slipped him the heavy purse Dagon had given me.
“Feels light.”
“Half now, half when you get me out at sunrise,” I told him.
“And if I don’t get you out?” he asked.
“Our fishy friend said he’d come and find me…and you too.”
“He doesn’t frighten me,” he said a little too forcefully, as if trying to convince himself.
“Oh, he should,” I said.
“Where’s he from?”
“A place that no longer exists,” I said. “What do I call you? Wild Boar seems a little dramatic.”
He grinned, showing a mouthful of irregular teeth. “I was always in trouble when I was younger, getting into fights, stealing. My father said I was like a wild boar tearing through the town. The name stuck. I became le Vautrin.”
“It’s a fine name, though not entirely practical if I have to call out to you in the middle of a crowd. That’s the sort of name people remember.”
He tilted his head, considering my point, before nodding. “Never thought of that. My name is Eugène François Vidocq, but everyone calls me Vidocq.”
“Then I will call you Eugène, because I am not everyone.”
“What do I call you?”
“Call me Nick,” I told him.
5
I followed Eugène through the crowd, taking care to use my crutch, just in case someone was watching us. He seemed to know everyone there, and he provided a running commentary on the characters we met.
“…you have to be careful of Tiny Tim; carries a snake in his sleeve.
…And that’s Mary-Mary the herbalist. She can cure a headache or kill you stone dead with the same potion.
…We call him English Tony, though I don’t think he’s never been to England. Speaks eight languages
…In the corner, sitting behind the barrel, that’s One-Franc. He’ll buy anything you have to sell, but he’ll only give you one franc.
…And just around the corner is his twin sister; she sells everything on her barrel for two francs.”
“I suppose you call her Two-Francs?”
“No, most people call her Cosette.”
Eugène’s powers of observation were remarkable. I could see why Dagon had chosen him, and if he survived a few more years, I was sure I’d be able to find a role for him in my organization.
“Where are you taking me?”
We’d been moving deeper and deeper into the tenements, leaving the lighted square behind. The buildings had become even more dilapidated, and only individual candles burned behind scraps of cloth covering windows.
Even though we were alone on the narrow street, Eugène dropped his voice to a whisper. “Our fishy friend said you are looking into the missing children.”
“I am.”
“The police aren’t. So why are you?”
“I don’t like the idea of someone taking children,” I answered.
“Even from a place like this? Sure, who’d miss them?”
I heard the ice in his voice and guessed that he was testing me.
“From any place. And children should always be missed.”
“You’ve children of your own?” he asked.
“None alive,” I said, surprised by the bitterness of my tone. The true cost of immortality is to watch everyone you know and love grow old and die.
We walked on in silence for a while, and then he said, “Even before the fish-man reached out to me, I was looking into the disappearances, following leads, talking to the witnesses.”
“You sound like a policeman.”
He shook his head quickly. “I’m better.”
“What makes you better?”
“I’m one of what you’d call the criminal class. I can ask questions no outsider would ever get to ask. Do you know who’d make the best police?” he asked, a touch of excitement in his voice. Without waiting for an answer, he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, back toward the square. “That lot. Any one of them. They know every trick in the book. Set a thief to catch a thief.”
“Not that simple…,” I began.
“Why not?” he demanded. “Thieves catching thieves, forgers chasing down forgers—and no one knows how to defeat a burglar better than another burglar.”
Set a thief to catch a thief. I had to agree, it made some sense. But it would never work; who would want to employ thieves, forgers, and burglars?
6
We climbed three flights of increasingly rickety stairs. At one point every second step was missing, and I could see right through to the floor below.
“During the winter, everything that can be burnt—doors, window frames, floors, ceilings, stairs�
�will be put to the fire,” Vicocq explained. “It’s either that or freeze to death.”
We came out onto a narrow landing. There were six doorways, but only two still had a wooden door in the frame. The rest were covered with sheets of billowing cloth. “Stay here.” He pushed me back into the shadows.
Eugène went to the first wooden door and rapped gently. It was opened almost immediately by a tall, surprisingly well-dressed woman. Her clothes fit her perfectly, which suggested that these were not some stall-bought secondhand rags. Here was someone displaced by the Revolution, now fallen on hard times. I watched how she grabbed at his hands, and even without being told, I knew this was the mother of some of the missing children.
Eugène waved me forward. As I got close to the woman, I realized that she was blind, white cataracts stark against the shadows on her skin.
“This is Madame Bougon,” Vidocq said gently, taking the woman’s hands in his and leading her into the small bare room. “Madame, this is Monsieur Nick; he has come to help me look for your children.”
The room was a simple square, with a bed against one wall and a table and chair pushed against another. Children’s clothes were draped across the end of the bed. A second chair was set before the open window. Vicocq helped Madame Bougon into it, and she turned toward the opening. I knew she was listening for her children.
“Tell Monsieur Nick what you told me,” he urged the woman.
She turned to me. Her iron-gray hair was pulled back, emphasizing her cheekbones, giving her face a slightly skull-like appearance.
“Do you know what took my children?” she asked.
I noticed that she said “what” rather than “who.”
“I do not,” I answered. “I know that at least eight children have gone missing.”
Eugène shook his head. “Three times that number at least. Probably closer to thirty. Maybe more,” he added.
Resting my crutch against the wall, I crouched before Madame Bougon and gently took her hands in mine. Her flesh was cool and felt like paper. “Tell me about your children.”
“Marius and Simplice,” she said so quietly I had to strain to hear her. “Twins. Thirteen years old. They were never any trouble. My husband is a sailor and away for months at a time. Since I lost my sight, the children look after me, keep our room clean. We have a little money. Marius sells bread and Simplice flowers. It brings in a few francs. We are not wealthy, monsieur, but we want for nothing.”
“Tell me what happened?” I asked.
“A week ago…” She stopped and turned toward Vidocq. “Was it a week, do you think?”
“It was a week,” he agreed.
“I first smelled it on them a week ago,” she said. “When you live here, Monsieur Nick, you learn to ignore the usual odors. It is the unusual ones that stand out.” She leaned forward and sniffed the air before me. “I can tell you are not one of us,” she murmured. “Your clothes are freshly washed, and you have bathed with lavender soap within the past few days.”
“You are very perceptive, Madame Bougon,” I told her, impressed.
She tilted her head slightly. “What does he look like, Vidocq?” she asked.
“Like an old soldier.”
She caught my hand and turned it over, running her fingers over my flesh. “This is not the hand of a soldier.”
“Tell me what you smelled a week ago?” I urged her gently.
“When the children came home, I smelled something sweet and spicy in the air. They had brought me a slice of freshly baked gingerbread.”
I glanced at Vidocq and he shook his head.
“They’d met someone—Marius said she was a baker, but Simplice said she made sugar candy—and this person had given them the treats. They’d brought the gingerbread back to me but admitted that they’d eaten the candy.”
“No one in the Court of Miracles bakes gingerbread. No candy makers either,” Vidocq said.
“The following day when they came home, the smell of sugar and spices was even stronger,” Madame Bougon said. “And when Simplice kissed me goodnight, I could feel sticky honey on her lips.”
“Not a lot of honey in the Court of Miracles,” Vidocq added.
“The third day they did not return.” Madame Bougon buried her face in her hands and wept. Over the course of my long life, too often have I heard the sound of a mother weeping for her children. There is nothing more heartbreaking.
“I found Madame Bougon wandering the streets, calling out for the twins,” Eugène said. “I brought her home. I told her that if Marius and Simplice were lost—and it is easy to get lost in the maze of streets and alleyways—they would come back here once they found their bearings.”
Madame Bougon clasped my hands again. I could feel her tears against my skin. “Will you find my children, monsieur?”
“I will do my utmost,” I promised her. I looked up at Eugène and he nodded toward the door. “Let me go and look for them, madame, and I assure you that I will return before the dawn with some news.”
She squeezed my hands a final time and then released me. “Find my children, monsieur.”
I stopped at the door and looked back, seeing her outlined against the window, listening intently for her missing children.
7
“Follow me.”
Without a word, Vidocq led me up a series of increasingly narrow stairs and onto the roof. The building was a little taller than most nearby, allowing me to see across the Court of Miracles. The glow from the square was clearly visible, but as my eye moved farther away from it, lights became fewer and fewer and huge swaths of the slums were in darkness. Above the stink of rot and mold, the air was a little clearer, and I drew in a deep breath, filling my lungs.
I was standing at the edge of a low brick wall that enclosed the roof. Vidocq hopped up onto the bricks and started to balance his way along them, ignoring the six-story fall to the street. Perhaps he expected me to tell him to get down; if so, he was going to be disappointed. I have always believed that people should be free to make their own mistakes.
“You brought me to Madame Bougon for a reason,” I said, more a statement than a question.
“And what do you think the reason is?” he asked.
“Has to be the candy. I presume it links to the other missing children.”
“You’re smart. I can see why the fish-man likes you. I’ve talked to all the families who have lost children,” he said. He turned at the corner and started walking back toward me. “In four cases, there was some evidence that they had been given candy or cake.” He stopped before me. “Also, the sister of a missing girl had this in her pocket.” He produced what looked like an irregular orange stone, speckled with hair and threads. He carefully pulled the threads away before handing it to me, then automatically licked his fingers.
I recognized the half-melted lump as a piece of candy.
“These are street-smart children,” I said, bringing the candy to my nose and breathing in carefully. “They are not going to be lured by a piece of candy.” I held the nugget up to the night sky and squinted at it. “Maybe something has been added to the sugar….” I glanced at Vidocq. “Might be wise not to lick your fingers after you handle this.”
He hopped off the low wall and rubbed his hands on his dirty trousers. “A poison?”
“Unlikely, but perhaps something to draw the children back to the source.”
“Like a magical spell?”
“Perhaps.”
“And you believe in that stuff?” He was clearly trying to sound as if he didn’t, but I could hear the touch of fear and wonder in his voice.
“I believe that we don’t know everything about the world. There are wonders being discovered every day. In fact, I am of the opinion that we knew much more in the ancient past than we do now.” I brought the orange candy to my nose agai
n and breathed deeply. The scent of citrus was strong, but there were other, less easily identifiable odors: mint certainly, licorice, and something else, something damp and earthy and vaguely foul. I’d certainly be able to recognize it again.
“There was another reason you brought me to this house,” I said. “You had several families to choose from. Why this one?”
Vidocq picked up a broken slate and pulled out a battered, blunt-tipped pocketknife. “We are here,” he said, marking an X on the slate. “Children have gone missing from here…here…here….and here.” He drew a series of dots. They were all relatively close to the X. Then he drew two circles, one within the other, linking the dots. “These children,” he said, pointing to the inner circle, “disappeared first. These”—he tapped the dots in the outer circle—“were the next to go.”
I tapped the center of the smaller circle. “What’s in here?”
The young man led me to the opposite side of the roof and pointed. Across a series of dilapidated rooftops, I could make out a steepled roof. “What is that?” I asked.
“Once, maybe fifty years ago, it was a church.”
I was now able to make sense of the white and gray slabs that completely encircled the building, jutting from the dark earth like broken teeth. They were gravestones.
“It hasn’t been used as church for as long as anyone can remember; it was deconsecrated a long time ago,” Vidocq said.
“Who lives there now?”
“Would you be surprised if I told you no one?” His arm swept wide to encompass all of the Court of Miracles. “Every building here is teeming with families. Upward of a hundred people can live in a single tenement. But no one lives there. No one, not even the bravest ruffian, will steal a length of wood from the door or a piece of lead off the roof.”
“Why is that?” I asked, although I already had a very good idea.
Machiavelli Page 3