Chapter 8
Eight
“Don’t you worry. We’ll convince Dinsmore to let us follow you.” David murmured, as he bent to unfold the Berlin’s stairs.
Marcus stepped down into the hostelry courtyard and surveyed the place: single-story tavern, water pump and troughs and stables.
It was late afternoon, and the place was quiet, buzzing horseflies more numerous than customers.
A sorrel swished its tail as a man in a rough tunic and breeches led it into the stable’s interior.
He eyed the horse’s sturdy chest, legs, and healthy coat: an encouraging sign the place could supply him with a mount he’d need to reach Paris in three days.
Dinsmore had continued to argue against his going back for the comte’s daughter throughout their ride, but Marcus had chosen his course and would not be moved.
“At best we won’t be more than a day or two behind,” David continued. “But I’ll need to change the panels on the coach first. In case anyone connects it with what happened back in Rouen.”
Marcus glanced over his shoulder at the Berlin. Counting the doors, there were three blue and gold painted panels on each side, one panel on the front and one on the back. “You can do that?” he asked softly, “in less than a day? Without repainting them?”
“I do try and plan for fortuities. Keeps the chaos at bay.”
Marcus gave a low whistle. “You never cease to amaze. And not just because you think you can keep chaos at bay…”
David waved a dismissive hand as if his genius for innovation was no more unusual than the ability to tie a cravat, but Marcus glimpsed the curve of a satisfied smile as he turned back to take care of the coach’s team.
After a brief negotiation with the hostler, Marcus selected a sturdy bay mare with a deep chest and strong legs from the stable’s stock.
Once the fee had been agreed upon, arrangements had been made for her return, and the horse had been saddled, he led her over to the coach.
Glancing up at the luggage strapped to the back of the carriage, he quickly calculated what he’d need. “I’ll take the small portmanteau.”
David, still acting in his role as coachman, untied a cylindrical leather bag and handed it down. “That’s not a lot of clothes.”
“Lucky for him, disheveled and slightly dirty is the fashion in Paris these days,” said Andre, who was leaning against the side of the coach, a flask of wine in one hand. He gestured with it at Marcus. “Shows your affinity for the working class.”
You might add this to your ensemble, as well.” He pulled a red liberty cap from his coat pocket and tossed it to Marcus. Eying Marcus’s severe but elegantly cut brown suit, his sable hair pulled back with a silk ribbon, he said, “Do try and blend in…”
Marcus examined the cap. The brown fingers of a stain stretched along one edge and some of the knitted stitches were sliced through.
He tried not to think about where the cap most likely had come from and whether the bodies in the field had been found.
Told himself to focus on what lay ahead, because that, unlike the past, could be changed.
Yanking the ribbon from his queue, he pulled the hat over his hair. “My art box and writing desk are inside the coach. I’ll need them.”
Andre swung up the stairs of the Berlin, opened the door, and climbed inside. A moment later, he returned with both.
“Won’t taking those be cumbersome?” David asked, watching as Marcus began securing the portmanteau behind the horse’s saddle.
“Can’t be helped.”
“I understand the writing desk,” he said, scratching his chin, and Marcus knew he was thinking of the secret panels he’d built into the desk to hold forged identity cards and passes.
Marcus secured the writing box with a leather strap and tied it to the right of the portmanteau, snugging it against the horse’s flank.
“But that?” David nodded at the art box, which also had its share of hidden compartments, as Marcus took it from Andre’s extended hand. “We shouldn’t be too far behind you with the carriage…”
“What traveling painter would leave the tools of his trade behind? Particularly when there’s a growing market for miniatures in the city.
” Aware the comte was straining to hear their conversation, Marcus didn’t add that the miniatures, called ‘portraits de consolation,’ were particularly popular as mementos for loved ones among the condemned awaiting death in Paris’s prisons.
He hoped this particular disguise wouldn’t be necessary, but knew from experience to have ready a Plan B, C and possibly D.
“Miniatures?” The comte began scrambling down from the box.
Marcus cursed inwardly. How much had the man overheard?
Joley landed beside David, his breath coming in rapid gasps. He patted his chest.
Was he having heart palpitations? That was all they needed.
The comte opened his coat, clawing at the stitches of the lining just below the left sleeve. He pulled a small, cloth-wrapped bundle from the hole he’d made and held it out to Marcus with shaking hands. “Take this.”
When Marcus hesitated, Joley grabbed his hand, pressing the bundle into his palm. “It will help you find her.”
Unfolding what had once been a fine lace handkerchief, but was now just a grimy rag, Marcus found himself holding a miniature, no bigger than a walnut, in a gilt frame set with diamonds. Watercolor and gouache on ivory, his artist’s brain registered.
“My Marguerite,” the comte said.
Marcus stared at the delicate face, the enormous dark eyes, nearly translucent skin, the tumble of silken curls falling past her shoulders.
“But this is the portrait of a child.” A child.
Of ten? Eleven? The age of his son. Pain seared through him; he shoved it back into the apothecary’s cabinet of forbidden emotions locked in his chest.
“Marguerite is twenty-eight.” The comte gestured at the miniature in Marcus’s hand, then his fingers tightened into a fist as if he were resisting the temptation to snatch the piece back. “This is the only likeness I was able to carry with me. I think it captures her spirit.”
Marcus studied the portrait again. There was something about the eyes, something at odds with the sweetness of the child’s face. He felt a prickling unease, as if ants were crawling up his spine.
Joley closed Marcus’s fingers around the miniature, clasping his hand in both of his, and whispered, “Her name is Marguerite de Joley de la Rouvroy. Marguerite Rouvroy since the uprising. Citizeness Rouvroy. She lives at number 17, Rue de Renard, in the Marais district. Do you know it?”
He’d memorized the streets of Paris by sketching portions of Turgot’s famous map of the city. He could draw them in his sleep.
“Your sketchbook.” Joley’s grip tightened as if he might imprint the address into Marcus’s flesh. “I know you are never without it. Give it to me.”
Marcus pulled his hand free and reached for the leather-bound book in his pocket, then hesitated. “Why?”
“I will write it down for you.”
“That will not be necessary.” The last thing he needed was to be stopped with the name and address of the former finance minister’s daughter (and a Girondin sympathizer) in his pocket.
But the comte had seen Marcus’s movement towards his pocket and, with a speed that would have made a London pickpocket—or Andre—proud, he snatched the sketch book free.
A piece of graphite encased in strips of wood that had been stuck between the pages tumbled out and Marcus caught it before it hit the ground.
Pocketing the miniature, he held out his hand.
“If you’ll allow me, I’ll ease your mind. ”
De Joley loosened his grip. Marcus eased the book from his fingers. Flipping to the first unused page, he did a quick line drawing of a fox. Tucking the pencil snugly between the pages of the book, he handed it back to Joley.
“See?” he said, pointing to the fox. “It’s a mnemonicum.
Renard Street.” Then he pointed at a slightly darker line at the side of the fox’s right ear.
“There’s a one, and if you’ll look at the set of darker lines forming the tip of the fox’s left ear, you’ll see a seven.
17 Rue de Renard.” He resisted the urge to snap, “Satisfied?”
The comte, plainly not satisfied, remained standing between Marcus and his mount.
“I’ll do my best, M’sieur.” Marcus said, in a tone that he hoped would encourage the man to move out of his way. He held out his hand for his sketchbook and pencil.
But instead of returning it, de Joley flipped the page, seized the pencil, and dramatically scrawled something on the back of it.
When he handed it back, Marcus saw what he’d written there.
Twenty thousand pounds for her safe return to me, and the bold flourish of his initials.
Marcus fought the urge to tear the note to pieces and throw them in the man’s face.
There were a myriad of reasons he chose to live the life he did. Money was not one of them.
The comte, a man who’d spent his life at court working to advance his schemes, must have noticed the change in Marcus’s expression, because he moved suddenly, gripping both of Marcus’s hands in his. “Swear.”
“Pardon?”
“Swear,” the comte repeated.
“I have already committed to the task.”
“On your honor. As a gentleman.”
This man, who’d chosen to leave his daughter behind, who only now, at the last moment, seemed to regret that choice, was questioning his honor? Marcus struggled to contain his rising fury. “Do you think I am a coward?“
“Swear you’ll bring her back to me,” the comte persisted, his words no longer a request, but a minister’s demand.
The mare beside him stomped her hoof and shook her head, rattling the bit.
Dinsmore reached an arm through the coach’s window, slapping the side and calling, “We must be off.” Marcus knew he was thinking of the tides, the ship waiting offshore.
They needed to be on their way. He needed to be on his.
“I’ve said I will do my best to bring your daughter back. Why do you insist on an oath?
“Why do you insist on refusing to give me one?”
There was something off about the situation, the comte’s insistence. If there was more time, Marcus would have thought it through more carefully. But there wasn’t. So, he swore.