Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
The setting sun was making the prison’s limestone walls look as if they were bathed in water-washed blood.
David Aylesworth leaned against the wall across from the Conciergerie, idly observing the flow of traffic through its prison gate.
In his hands, he held a piece of soft wax which he’d used to shape the design of a key Marcus had drawn for him.
He’d made the finished piece in iron. Small enough to smuggle into the prison without being detected.
A seemingly impossible task, but then, that was his favorite kind.
It had taken him nearly three days to find a smithy within their network of spies and to craft a satisfactory replica.
The key was inside a small box in his coat pocket.
David dropped the wax into a different coat pocket and pulled out a clay pipe and tobacco.
He had no idea how anyone could enjoy filling their mouth and lungs with what tasted to him like burning garden trash.
But, as Andre was fond of pointing out, “when you’re having a pipe, no one questions why you’re hanging about or whether you’re waiting for someone. You’re just a fellow enjoying a smoke.”
Filling the pipe’s bowl, he clamped the stem between his teeth and drew out his tinderbox. Flipping open the lid, he slipped the steel onto his finger, struck the flint, and caught the spark on a match.
Before touching the splinter to the tobacco, David took a moment to admire the instant flammability of the chemicals he’d applied to the wood. He had several ideas for how the concoction might come in handy.
Puffing on the pipe and trying not to cough, he passed the time speculating on how he could design a portable laboratory.
Something similar to the art box he’d built for Marcus, but on a larger scale?
Of course, then he’d have to make more modifications to the coach.
And compensate for the added weight on the vehicle’s springs.
The sky darkened from orange to red, gradually deepening to blue, as he waited. Lanterns flared to life on the barges moored along the banks of the Seine, as well as on the exteriors of buildings facing the river, and atop posts along the Pont au Change.
He continued to smoke, observing the comings and goings at the gate, and resisted the urge to check his pocket watch.
A short time later, he heard Andre Scott’s rich tenor singing a verse from the “Carmagnole,” “Antoinette had decided to drop us on our arses, but the plan was foiled and she fell on her face.” Andre was dressed in a suit of marine blue that made him nearly invisible in the deepening shadows.
As he neared, he drew a pipe with an elaborately embossed bowl from his pocket, held it out and said, loudly enough for anyone who might be observing them to hear, “Hey, citizen, have you a light?”
“But of course.” David pulled a match from his tinderbox, touched it to the embers in his pipe, and, when it flared to life, held it out.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Free country, free wall.”
They leaned companionably against it, Andre breaking the silence with the code that indicated he hadn’t spotted any surveillance. “I don’t see any stars, do you?”
“Nary a one,” David agreed.
Then, still cautious, Andre added softly, “She’s sent for me.”
“Finally. How did you manage it?”
“I didn’t.” Andre’s voice brimmed with an amusement he could barely contain. “Scribbler did.”
“Marcus?”
“On my advice. I suggested he show the lady his better self.”
“His better self?” David couldn’t contain a snort of laughter. Or from ticking off the skills he imagined Marcus thought revealed his ‘better self.’ “Forgery, fencing, marksmanship, lengthy silences, intermittent sarcasm…”
“You forgot hand-to-hand combat…”
“Did he threaten her?” David shook his head. “No, that wouldn’t be his style.”
“He has a sad lack of style,” Andre agreed mournfully.
David glanced over at him. “By lack of style, you mean he doesn’t share your preference for lace cuffs, embroidered waistcoats, and heeled pumps?”
“Heels make a man more imposing.”
“If you say so,” David allowed his gaze to travel meaningfully down the distance to Andre’s ribbon-trimmed bicorne, before lowering his voice and saying, “Was it forgery? Did he finally decide to forge a visitor’s request? He should have done it earlier. With only two weeks left...”
“As if Marcus isn’t constantly reminding me, time’s running out. I’ve had the devil’s own time assembling everything he’s asked for.”
“But you have it all?”
“Of course,” Andre snorted, “this should be the last of it.”
Both men’s eyes returned to the prison where a trickle of soldiers stepping out through the gate indicated the change from day to night shift.
Andre blew a series of perfect smoke rings. “He told her we’re rescuing her for the money.”
“He…what?”
“You heard me.”
“For the money? And she believed him?”
“Apparently so...”
“She thinks we’re mercenaries.” He turned to look at Andre, frowning. “That’s his idea of his better self?”
“Her father did offer him money. And apparently it convinced her. Though, I’ll admit, I prefer the role of knight in shining armor.”
“Mercenaries,” David repeated, shaking his head.
“Though, when you think on it. Armor’s inconvenient and the devil to keep properly oiled.
And it’s not as if we haven’t posed as disreputable characters before.
Remember that time we were following the double agent with a penchant for…
” He trailed off, muscles tensing like a pointer sighting a bird.
Following the focus of Scott’s attention, David spotted a young private, his figure so slight that he looked barely into his teens, walking out of the prison.
Without another word, Andre dumped the contents of his pipe on the cobbles and strode off.
David watched as his dark figure wove swiftly in and out of the evening’s traffic, crossed the street and merged with the steadily growing stream of soldiers leaving the prison.
He followed the young man, Allard was his name, remaining several paces behind him, until it was clear that the soldier was alone.
Then Andre lengthened his stride, catching up with him and slinging his arm around Allard’s shoulders as if they were boon companions.
Which, given Scott’s silver tongue, David had no doubt Allard would soon believe they were.
When the two men were nearly out of sight, David dumped the smoldering remnants of tobacco out of his own pipe, ground the embers into the mud, and followed.
He walked slowly, making little effort to keep the two men ahead of him in sight, even as the streets became far more winding, muddy, and welcoming to soldiers scraping by on patriot’s pay.
He knew where they were headed. Had scouted the streets and alleys using a map that Marcus, with that incredible memory of his, had sketched out for them.
Catching sight of a sign hanging above a low doorway, featuring a jaunty rooster sporting a bright red liberty cap, he lengthened his stride.
He spared only the briefest glance to his right as he passed an alley too narrow and dark to be favored by the prostitutes who loitered about the tavern’s doorway.
Ignoring their calls of “Good evening, love,” and “Is all of you that big?” he stepped inside the Cock’s Roost. The humid air was heavy with the scents of wine, roasting meat with spices that would never grace an English table, and sweat.
There was a crowded bar and a sea of tables filled with blue-uniformed and red-capped men.
Andre and Allard had found a spot near the unlit, but thoroughly blackened, fireplace at the far end of the room.
Using his height and the impressive breadth of his shoulders, David maneuvered himself to a place at the bar where he could keep his eye on the pair. He ordered a glass of wine (red, since white was considered the drink of aristos) and a dish of olives.
Leaning his back against the bar, he watched as a leathery barmaid in a grease-stained apron served Andre and Allard plates of steaming beans topped with roasted duck legs and sausage.
His stomach growled, but he didn’t dare order a meal; it would look odd if he needed to rush out of the place, leaving an unfinished plate of food behind.
“Haven’t seen you here before. Where are you from?”
When he turned to answer, David saw to his relief that the question was directed not at him, but at two soldiers seated beside him.
Their uniform coats looked as if they’d rolled in road-dust, and they were eating with the face-down gusto of draft horses at the end of a week’s worth of plowing.
The man nearest David had sweat-soaked brown hair. His companion was a sweat-soaked blond.
“You don’t sound like you’re from Paris.”
“Rouen,” the brown-haired man muttered, barely glancing up between shovels.
“Rouen eh? That has to be at least a week’s ride. What brings you here?” The questioner was a guardsman with a droopy eye and a sad attempt at a mustache.
“Three days,” the blond man said between bites, “if you ride like the Devil’s ordered your ass to Paris.”
“Official business.” The brown-haired man grunted.
“Official business?” The droopy-eyed man repeated in a tone suggesting he found it difficult to believe Rouen would have business even approaching ‘official.’
“Official business,” the brown-haired soldier repeated, setting down his spoon and scowling. “Hunting counterrevolutionaries and spies.”
“Here? In Paris?” Droopy-eye snorted with laughter. “Why? Did you run out of ‘em in Rouen? Or do you think we need your help?”
“Your wine. Your olives.” The barkeep set down a bottle, a cloudy-looking glass and an earthenware bowl of olives beside David’s elbow.
Popping an olive into his mouth, David chewed distractedly, his eyes on Andre and Allard and his ears on the soldiers’ ongoing conversation.
“We’re doing fine mopping up the scum here. Feel free to visit any of our prisons, if you doubt us,” another soldier chimed in.
“Is that so? Have you mopped up a bastard by the name of Marcus Templeton?”
Marcus Templeton? David nearly choked on his olive. Templeton was the alias Marcus used when he’d posed as James Dinsmore’s private secretary. He picked up the bottle of wine, filled the dirty glass, and drank in an attempt to clear his throat.
“Never heard of him,” the broken-nosed soldier responded. “Who is he? A Girondist?”
“He’s a spy. Might be French. Might be an Englishman who speaks like a Frenchman. But, either way, he’s a cold-blooded bastard.”
“A murdering bastard.”
“Murder?”
“Who’d he kill?”
David took another sip of the wine, grimacing at the sour taste, and shifted closer to the men, even though this was a story he knew all too well.
“Seven Rouen guardsmen,” the brown-haired soldier said.
“Seven of our brothers,” the blond amended. “Shot, slashed, butchered.”
“Laid out in a farmer’s field, like they were nothing.”
“One man did all that?”
“As far as we know. We’ve tracked him here.”
David, setting his glass down, saw the brown-haired soldier cast a look of contempt at the Parisian soldiers who’d been quizzing him. “Of course, it’s your territory, so you’ll have no trouble finding him and ‘mopping him up.’”
“What’s he look like?”
“Brown hair, brown eyes, no visible scars. Looks like a clerk.”
Which had been what Andre intended when he’d chosen the costume to help Marcus play his part; a dull brown suit, loosely cut to hide a body hardened by long marches and fighting. The sketchbook Marcus almost always had in his hands helped conceal his swordsman’s calluses.
“With that description you could round up half the clerks in Paris.”
David popped another olive into his mouth and chewed, straining to hear how they’d connected Marcus to the bodies in the field and how they’d traced him to Paris. It must have been someone at the stable where they’d rented him a horse.
He glanced back at Andre and Allard and saw they were getting up from their table.
He fished several coins from his pocket, more than enough to pay for his food and drink, straining to hear just a bit more.
“Are you leaving then?” The barkeep asked.
David nodded, reluctantly. The soldiers were still talking.
“His accent. Is it Parisian?”
“Or does he sound like one of you fellows?” The Parisian guardsmen were leaning towards the Rouen soldiers like hounds keen to catch a scent.
Andre and Allard brushed past him, and David knew he’d run out of time to hear more. Slapping the coins down on the bar, he counted to ten, then strode out into the night after them.