Chapter 58
Fifty-Eight
The air in the little attic room they’d rented with the view of the city gates clung to their skin like wet gauze, so Andre proposed they climb out the window in search of cooler air and a better view.
David wondered if Andre might have squirrel somewhere in his family tree, as he effortlessly found hand and foot holds along the worn shingles.
“You have to admit,” Andre said, leaning back against the steep slope of roof, feet braced on the lip of a gutter, “it’s an improvement.”
David, gasping from the effort of the climb, could only nod as he surveyed the line of carriages, carts, horses, and people lined up beside the gates.
“Two guards on the gate, one checking papers. Two standing back by the old tax office.” He nodded at the brick building with elaborate limestone arches. “Security doesn’t seem to have changed dramatically since last week.”
“Still, the mood when I went out for supplies…” David thought about the way people on the streets avoided one another’s eyes and the sudden short-tempered exchanges. “Tense. The way the air gets just before a storm rolls in.”
“The sooner we get out of this city, the better.” Andre turned to look at him, “We’ve got everything we need. How long will it take you to put it all together?”
He mentally reviewed the structure he had planned. “Not long.”
“Not long hours, or not long days?”
“Hours.”
“That’s a relief.” They watched as a guard pulled a man out of line, striking him in with the butt of a rifle when he appeared to resist.
“I know, I know, you don’t have to remind me how many days we have left to meet the cutter.”
“It’s not just the cutter. I’ve promised my two younger sisters I’ll escort them to Lady Hammersmith’s ball. Wouldn’t care to join me, would you?”
“How are you thinking about a ball now?” David said incredulously.
“You know me, always looking ahead, thinking about potential disasters, and how to counter them.”
“I’d sooner climb another one of those with one hand.” David gestured at the sea of sharply slanting roofs surrounded them like waves in a storm off Cape Horn. “Why not ask Tyns? He’s the one with the fancy title, after all.”
Andre gave a mock shudder. “Even if he had a mind to say yes—which he never does, my three older sisters still haven’t forgiven me for inviting him to Lady Beaconsfield’s house party.”
“Wasn’t there was some sort of dust up over his response to Lady Beaconsfield’s less than flattering views on French culture?”
“Hard to say which is more challenging to polite company, Tyn’s long silences when he’s decided someone’s said something particularly stupid, or his responses when he decides to speak his mind.”
“Definitely when he speaks his mind.”
They fell silent, watching as a large carriage, piled high with luggage, rolled through the gates. “How do you think he and the lady are faring?”
“The tunnels were the safest place I could find on short notice,” Andre said, in the tone of a man who’d had to defend his position numerous times already and felt both justified and a wee bit guilty.
“The lady was surprisingly level-headed about the whole thing,” he continued. Grabbed a lantern and marched right in. Tyns did a bit of foot dragging…”
“Given his history, you can’t really blame him.”
“Growled and got on with it. Though, when I think on it, he really has no right to growl, seeing as how he was the one who stepped forward and volunteered…”
“As if you wouldn’t have if he hadn’t.” David turned to look at him. “Tyns tries to make people believe he’s got a heart of stone. You try and convince ‘em you haven’t a care in the world. Bloody liars.”
“And you like to pretend the only thing you care about is tinkering. Somehow, I don’t think honesty would make any of us particularly successful in this business.”
They watched as a guard checked the papers of a cart driver, while another poked with his bayonet through the cart’s contents. David leaned forward as the cart rolled through the gate, calculating distances and angles in his head.
“D’you think those guardsmen from Rouen are still in the city?”
“I doubt it. There’s not much for them to do here. And despite all their talk of ‘fraternity,’ the Paris guardsmen aren’t likely to invite outsiders to their hunt. Less glorious victory against enemy spies to go around.”
Andre shifted his feet. A loosened tile rattled and rolled off the rooftop.
David didn’t look to see its bouncing, clattering course downwards. But it was impossible to miss the crash it made when it hit the ground. Or the shouts of consternation that followed.
The two men hunched down, backs pressed to the gable, listening for shouts of, “Men on the roof!” Or, “Hey, you up there!” Or, more ominously, “Guards!”
“I’m curious about whether you heard the same rumors we did when you were driving the cart around,” David said, deciding to address another nagging concern.
“The city’s swimming in rumors. Which ones in particular?”
“I hear the National Assembly…”
“It’s the National Convention, now.”
David waved away the correction. “They keep changing the damned names of things—months, years, streets, buildings. Makes it damned difficult to keep up.”
“And yet potentially fatal not to…”
“I hear the National Convention is about to ratify their new constitution. Marcus said a source passed you a copy of the draft that’s been submitted for Robespierre’s approval. Do you think that will soften Grenville’s fury over this impromptu mission?”
“So long as we get back to England,” David said, “the good Lord Grenville’s welcome to be as furious with us as he likes.”