Chapter 53
Fifty-Three
Three lanterns and Marguerite’s small bundle of necessities set on the kitchen table was the only remaining evidence that they’d ever been in the house.
“Ready, then?” Andre said.
Marcus shot a glance at Marguerite in her simple dress and sensible shoes, and with only a few rebel curls escaping her neat braid; in all his years of soldiering and spying, he’d never felt less ready.
Even after Andre had shown him the maps, told him it was the safest place he could find, and assured him it wouldn’t be that bad.
Bad didn’t even begin to describe how he was feeling.
Marguerite glanced at Marcus, then at Andre. “Doesn’t he…don’t we… need disguises?”
“That’s half the beauty of this place. No need to worry about being seen. We’re not going out, we’re going down.”
Down. The word sank like a stone in his gut.
“Down,” Marguerite repeated, in a tone that reflected only curiosity.
Underground. Marcus felt sweat prickling his temples. Beneath miles of earth. With Marguerite de Rouvroy. Whatever celestial beings had been playing tricks on him, were clearly moving from humor to torture.
“Take a lamp and follow me. And watch your step,” Andre swung open a panel in the rear of the kitchen to reveal a narrow set of stairs.
“Are we going to hide in the cellar?”
Marcus would have welcomed a cellar; he felt fairly certain he could manage that level of darkness, but he knew it would be one of the first places a search party would look for them.
“Not the cellar,” Andre said, leading down the stairs into a narrow space with dirt floors and walls made from a combination of rough limestone, scavenged bricks, and mortar. Marguerite lifted her lamp to investigate. Light glinted on swirling dust motes, bits of mica, and spider-webbed shelves.
“Then…where?”
“You’ll see.”
Damn Andre, the man couldn’t resist a big reveal. Despite the coolness of the cellar, sweat trickled down Marcus’s neck.
One set of shelves had been pulled away from the wall. Beyond it, where there should be a wall, darkness yawned. Far from being frightened, Marguerite reached out a hand and stepped closer.
Clever women, he reminded himself. Easier to rescue than simple ones.
The light of her lantern combined with Andre’s to reveal an earth-packed floor and roughly carved walls.
“A tunnel?” she said with dawning wonder.
“I knew there were miles of them under the city—who doesn’t?
From all the centuries of mining limestone and gypsum to build it.
I must have been about nine when that massive sinkhole opened beneath the Rue de L’Enfer.
All those houses, people, carts, animals, vanished beneath the earth in an instant. ”
“Horrifying.” She shook her head. “But I have to admit, when I first heard about it, I imagined all of it, the street, its inhabitants, perfectly intact underground. Like a fairy kingdom.”
Fairy…fay. A derivative of the Latin word fata, plural fatum, destiny, fate, that which is ordained. Marcus told himself he didn’t believe in fate.
“I’ve been fascinated by them ever since,” Marguerite added,
“Then you probably know that afterwards, the previous King created a special government bureau to map and maintain the quarries and tunnels,” Andre rattled on. “The work is unfinished, but we were able to get a hold of some of the drawings for it, which is how we discovered this particular tunnel.”
“It hasn’t been used in ages,” Andre continued as he and Marguerite stepped inside. “So, it should be a safe place for you both to hide for a few days. Safer, at any rate, than a house with windows, where a neighbor might catch sight of you and raise questions about strangers occupying the place.”
“It looks rather small,” Marguerite’s voice drifted back to where Marcus was still standing, lantern in hand, at the tunnel’s mouth.
“It leads to a quarry. We’ve got lanterns there, bedding and other supplies. Plenty of space to move about there. Indeed, you don’t want to wander about too much; you might get lost.”
Their voices were becoming muffled, but he heard Andre say, “Marcus has reviewed the maps, has an amazing memory for that sort of thing.”
He took a step forward; he did indeed have a too perfect picture of what lay ahead in his mind, from the height of the tunnel in most places—roughly six feet high, to the width, roughly three feet wide, and a narrow twist they would have to crawl through on their hands and knees.
But if he continued to hesitate, he’d be left to follow with only his single flickering lantern to light the way.
Taking a deep breath, he ducked and entered. The earthy odors of rock dust, metal and mold filled his nose and mouth.
Andre’s voice floated back through the darkness. “You don’t have any problems with the dark or close spaces, do you, Madame de Rouvroy?”
“Bit late to ask, don’t you think?” Marcus gasped, catching up with them.
“So long as it’s not a prison cell, I can bear it.”
If she could, he would. Marcus kept moving forward, his eyes fixed on the light of their lanterns; it danced across the earthen walls and ceilings. Like flames in hell.
“Is it safe?” Marguerite asked. “The roof and walls, I mean. No chance of a cave-in?”
Mountains of rock and earth suddenly giving way. Crushing them in an instant. Burying them in the darkness. His chest and lungs felt as if it was already happening.
“When David and I explored it, we didn’t see any recent signs of shifting. And you’ll find that the quarries are shored up with massive pillars of stone—the quarry men dug around them, so it’s not like they’re unstable piles of rock.”
“Safe, quiet, and doesn’t smell like offal. I’d say it’s a definite improvement over the Conciergerie...”
Marcus followed the sound of her voice, like a silver thread in the twisting darkness.
“It’s a good thing dark spaces don’t bother you,” Andre’s voice floated back, “because Marcus hates ‘em.”
Marcus started, striking his head. He touched his fingers to the throbbing spot and felt the stickiness of blood. Why on earth had Andre told her that?
“Given what I’ve seen of you all thus far, I wouldn’t have thought there’d be much that frightens any of you…”
“Fear makes a man cautious.” Marcus said tersely. “Caution keeps him alive.”
“And yet, too much caution can keep you from really living,” Marguerite said.
“Or at least, it has in my case. I had a lot of time to think in that awful place. I realized I’d wasted so much time worrying about what would happen if I acted too soon, stepped wrong, made a mistake.
Doing nothing. And then, suddenly, there was no time left to do anything. ”
“You made art…incredible art.”
“Which no one will ever see. Maybe if I’d started sooner, worked harder, hadn’t listened to my father and my husband saying it was a frivolous waste…”
He opened his mouth to tell her that her paintings weren’t gone.
At least not the three pieces she’d prepared for the Louvre salon, but she was continuing to speak.
“It doesn’t matter. I won’t make that mistake again.
Caution can go to hell.” She lifted the hem of her skirt scrambling over a pile of rubble. Rocks scattered around her.
Marcus scrambled after her.
“To be fair,” Andre said as the tunnel turned sharply. “Marcus’s caution has saved our necks more times than I can count. Never seen him hesitate when action is required.”
“Is that why he took up my father’s offer for his services?”
Marcus rubbed his smarting scalp, reminding himself that this was what he wanted. For her to trust his skills, but to keep him at the distance he couldn’t seem to maintain.
“He was the first to step forward,” Andre said, “when your father begged for someone to go back for his only child.”
What game was he playing at? Was he trying to convince Marguerite she wasn’t being left alone with the Butcher of Rouen? Or that the Butcher had a heart?
“Still,” Andre continued, after they’d turned their bodies sideways, edging through a particularly narrow passage. “I suspect you and I would both be leery of dark spaces if we’d had the misfortune to be buried alive…”
Marcus stopped, his head spinning not only with the shock of Andre’s casual betrayal, but with the memory his words provoked. Damp earth on his face, in his eyes, in his mouth when he opened it to scream.
“Buried alive?” Marguerite turned to look at him, her lantern raised as if searching for the truth of Andre’s words in his face.
In the flickering light, Marcus could see her expression of horror and pity as she found it.
“Do you think I would lie about such a thing?” He wanted to tell her that he would never lie to her.
To explain the story behind the pamphlet with its lurid headline.
Though what good would it do? He might not be a mercenary, but he was a spy, and a forger, and he’d killed for his king and his countrymen, and if need be, he’d do it again. If she held him in contempt, so be it.
She was vulnerable. He couldn’t afford to be.
“It was a long time ago.” Sixteen years this September. “A battle.” Saratoga. “Nasty wound.” The saber slashing down. Biting into his flesh. So much pain. So much blood. Then nothing.
“Incompetent surgeon didn’t bother to make sure I was truly dead. Got tossed in a mass grave.” The tangle of cold corpse limbs all around him.
“How did you survive?”
“Decided it was a wretched way to die.” The waves of panic and fury. “Clawed my way out.”
“Is this why you do what you do now?”
Why did she insist on asking so many questions? Why couldn’t she just believe it was for the money? It would make everything so much simpler. Gritting his teeth, Marcus focused on the bobbing light of Andre’s lantern up ahead. Imagining how he’d wring the man’s neck when they got a moment alone.
He got his chance just before they reached the entrance of the quarry, where Andre and David had set up camp for them.
Andre stepped back. “This is the rough bit, Madame de Rouvroy. You’ll want to push your lantern through first, then wriggle through on your back. Less than comfortable, but I assure you, it will be fine once you get through. More than enough room once you get inside.”
Marguerite wrapped her skirts tightly around her legs and proceeded to follow Andre’s instruction. Her slippered feet disappeared through the narrow opening without Andre’s assistance. “This is amazing,” her muffled voice called back.
Marcus stepped close to Andre and hissed, “Why the hell did you do that?”
“Do what? Tell her how to get through?”
“Don’t insult us both by feigning innocence. Why did you tell her about me? About the war?”
“I imagine it felt a bit like the punch you threw at me in the alley.”
“Was it some kind of petty revenge, then? You know why I punched you. We talked about it. It had to look real to make the story about the attack convincing…”
“We did. And I agreed. But you didn’t warn me before you did it.”
“Is that what this is about?” Marcus shook his head in disbelief. “Your natural instinct—any man’s natural instinct, would have been to duck. I couldn’t risk the blow going awry and causing real damage.”
“So, what you’re saying,” Andre said carefully, “Is that you did it to ensure I’d have no time to put up a defense.”
“Yes, of course.”
“To ensure that what had to be done got done properly.”
“Of course.”
“Are you coming? Is everything all right?” Marguerite called.
“Just working out how to get Marcus through,” Andre answered. Turning back to Marcus, he said softly, “I know you’re furious with me. You’re imagining how you’d like to wring my neck.”
“You do know me well.”
“I do. Including how you feel about spaces like these.” He gestured with his lantern at the encircling darkness.
“If you want to argue about the correctness of my decision at a later time, want to take another swing at me, I’ll stand and take it.
But I’ve done what I could to distract you. To get you this far.”
Marcus eyed the narrow opening through which Marguerite had disappeared, his gut churning.
“Marcus?” Marguerite called again, a note of concern in her voice.
“And, if the lady sees a side of you, other than the base one you’re determined to show her…would that be such a terrible thing, my friend?”