Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Andre de Saint-Just. Marcus winced inwardly. “You’re asking for attention,” he’d warned when Andre suggested using the surname of one of Robespierre’s most radical deputies on his forged identity papers.
“Just so,” Andre flashed him a grin. “They won’t have time to find out whether I’m actually related to Louis de Saint-Just, but they will have time to worry about it.”
Andre and David had arrived the day after Marcus had gone to Marguerite’s apartments. By that time, he’d not only discovered where Citizeness de Rouvroy was being held, but also that she’d be called up to hear charges this morning.
“Saint-Just is from Aisne, isn’t he?” Andre mused, stroking a chin stubbled from long nights on the road. “Do you think I ought to adopt an Hauts-de-France regional accent?”
Marcus repressed the urge to shout hell no. The accent was notoriously difficult to master, but then suggesting to Andre that he shouldn’t try something was an almost certain way to ensure that he would.
In retrospect, perhaps he shouldn’t have suggested that for today, they observe Citizeness de Rouvroy and the proceedings, then make a plan based on what they learned.
Which is what he’d been doing. Observing.
Leaning against the wall at the back of the spectator’s gallery.
Six armed national guardsmen stationed to the right and at the front of the room, three rows of picnicking spectators, three rows of anxious accused, and two railings separated him from the object of his mission.
She was dressed in a blue and white striped gown tied at the waist with a red sash.
Modest, politically correct, and yet, showcasing both the slenderness of her waist and the fullness of her bosom.
A red scarf was threaded through the waves of her dark hair in a manner that somehow managed to seem both artless and stylish.
Sketching her, he told himself, was purely for cover purposes: The heart-shaped face, the large brown eyes beneath those delicately arched brows, and the generous mouth.
He told himself that if looking at her made his heart beat faster and his muscles tense, it was simply because she was the target of this mission.
Nothing more.
Then prosecutor held up the green sketchbook.
And Marcus nearly dropped his.
Marguerite de Rouvroy had drawn one of the most powerful men in France as a fish.
“I’ll need to investigate this sketchbook to see if the work really is Citizeness Rouvroy’s.” Andre said in a reassuringly perfect Parisian accent.
Andre stepping forward had been Plan B. Though admittedly, Plan A had just gone spectacularly up in flames.
“Are you saying that this isn’t her sketchbook?” asked the prosecutor, who Marcus recognized as Fouquier-Tinville, newly appointed chief-prosecutor/public accuser and renowned for his dedication to conviction, regardless of the accused’s guilt or innocence.
Oh, it was hers all right. He recognized the style, the vibrancy and confidence in the lines that he’d seen in the works in her apartment.
In a few quick strokes Marguerite had captured both the coarse energy of Marat’s expression, and the shimmering fluidity of a fish’s scales.
Displayed in a gallery, it would have won her accolades.
In this courtroom, it was a death sentence.
“Or, that someone else drew this?” Fouquier-Tinville demanded, keeping the book open to the offending page.
“No, citizen. You are saying that. I’m just asking if I might examine it.”
There were chuckles in the gallery.
“After all,” Andre gestured at the quill and bottle of ink beside the papers piled in front of the prosecutor. “I notice you’ve been doodling throughout this procedure.”
“Doodling?” The prosecutor’s brows rose. He opened his mouth to speak, but Andre had already turned to the spectators.
“But who among us hasn’t doodled on a page not of his or her own creation, in a moment of inattention?”
“Or wall,” someone shouted from the gallery.
“Inattention?” the prosecutor sputtered. “Are you accusing me of inattention to the people’s business?”
“Inattention to the people’s business? No one would ever accuse Prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville of less than zealous attention to the people’s business. I’m merely suggesting that anyone might have doodled in that sketchbook you’re holding…”
He had a point, Marcus mused.
“Are you suggesting that I drew Marat as a fish?” Fouquier-Tinville’s face was turning an alarming shade of red. Marcus almost felt a flicker of sympathy for the man. Andre frequently had that effect on him, too.
Shrugging, Andre held out his hand, “I’m simply suggesting that the sketchbook requires further investigation…”
The justice slammed the book closed and clutched it to his chest, as if Andre might attempt to snatch it from him.
“This book most definitely belongs to the citizeness. Her neighbor, Citizeness Victorine Seurrier, gave it to us, and will testify to that fact. There is no question of Citizeness de Rouvroy’s guilt. ”
A sudden movement to Andre’s right caught Marcus’s eye. Marguerite, who had been standing like a caryatid, went ashen and swayed sideways.
Stuffing his sketchbook into his pocket, Marcus stepped forward.