Chapter One - Encounter in Paris
Major Sir William Andrew Philippe Bodie, late of His Majesty’s 5th (Northumberland) Regiment of Foot, stifled a yawn and idly turned his foot, studying the mirror-like gleam of his topboots. Fiend seize it, but life was flat!
He really should have stayed in the ‘Fighting 5th’, he said to himself, conveniently forgetting that he had sold out with barely a second thought when family duty had required it of him. The life of an army officer in peacetime was one monotonous round of social engagements - events in which Bodie had little or no interest, other than avoiding match-making mamas with daughters to marry off… but administering his family estate was proving to be even more tedious – and here there were no predatory matrons in the offing to add a frisson of danger to the proceedings.
No, surely there had been no real need for him to come back to Petersham. He should have stayed in the army and employed an agent to administer the estate. His own small property in Kent was run perfectly adequately by such an agent, after all. Fenner, who was currently sending him to sleep, would have been perfect for the role of Petersham Manor estate manager...
Unobtrusively he tried to work the stiffness out of his shoulders as his bailiff’s voice droned on. The new millstone for Sutton’s Mill was working well, it seemed. How... edifying.
“... and Sutton is sure that he will have cleared his arrears by September.”
Hearing the slight note of disbelief in Fenner’s voice, Bodie quirked one eyebrow at him, and Fenner’s weatherbeaten countryman’s face darkened.
“Well, Major, that there millstone was on’y seventy-odd years old. It should’ve lasted a dunnamany few years yet!” Fenner’s accent broadened as his feelings got the better of him, and Bodie shook his head firmly.
“If Jem Sutton said he needed a new millstone, then he needed it. That mill’s in his blood. You said it yourself, Fenner – he’s producing far more flour as he was before, and of a better quality too. Old Sir Andrew must have been sold a faulty stone.” Bodie shrugged. “These things happen. It’s as well we replaced it when we did – I’m not sure it would have lasted many more winters, and I have no desire to hand the estate over to young George with a faulty millstone spoiling the grain going through his watermill.”
“True ‘nough, sir,” agreed the bailiff, and returned to the pile of papers on the desk in front of him, shuffling them pointedly while casting a sapient eye over his employer, seeing the boredom in the dark blue eyes. Bodie was unable to repress a sigh and just managed to stop himself running a hand through his black hair, which was both free of powder and relatively short, as was the new fashion. As yet there was little sign of grey, save for some silvering at the temples of which the Major was privately rather proud than otherwise, and its carefully-styled disorder was, his youngest nephew Philip told him, ‘bang up to the nines’ and entirely suitable for a member of that group of sporting bloods beginning to be known as ‘Corinthians.’
It was clear that Major Bodie belonged to that set. His superbly-cut broadcloth coat was by a new tailor, Schultz, whose severe line was steadily gaining him clients – especially among those of a military background - and fitted so precisely to Bodie’s broad shoulders that it revealed every movement of the muscles beneath. His buckskin breeches were perfectly cut to outline long, powerful legs, his cravat was tied to a nicety and the shine on his boots were a testament to the skill of his valet. But no amount of careful tailoring could disguise the Major’s boredom at having to endure the necessary but stultifying review of the Quarterly reports.
Bodie eyed Fenner’s patient expression for a moment, then said in a resigned voice,
“Oh, very well. Carry on!”
As Fenner’s voice began to drone on again, Bodie allowed his eyes to wander. The indolent gaze, hidden behind long dark lashes, moved past the tall cabinet whose every drawer seemed to be stuffed with bills, receipts, and seed catalogues... across the row of hooks holding old harnesses, a battered leather yoke, and Fenner’s ancient woollen coat and even more ancient beaver hat... then along the firmly closed wooden door, with generations of carved names, nail holes, dents and even the odd scorch mark scarring its silvery surface.
In other words, the estate office looked exactly the same as it had when Bodie was a mere lad – nothing had changed. And the devil of it was, reflected the Major, if he said as much to Fenner – or Weston, his chief groom – or even to old Grantley, the vicar – they would smile, and agree, and consider it a compliment.
Concealing another yawn he let his eyes drift to the window, where the golden sunshine of a summer’s afternoon was caressing the whitewashed walls and fresh dark green-painted wood of the stables running out to form two sides of the spacious, scrupulously clean yard. Through the stone arch of the yard entrance the Major could see the inviting green shade of the bridleway which led down to the river on the far side of the dusty, rutted lane, and abruptly he decided that no matter how long this discussion lasted, he would somehow manage an evening ride by the Thames later.
Two of the stable lads, he noticed idly, were walking his matched bays around the cobbled yard under Weston’s strict eye. A third lad forked the last of the previous year’s hay out of the hayloft on to a waiting cart, chattering all the while to young Mary Dodkin from the house – and what was the ‘tween maid doing down here at this time of day?
A bluebottle droned in and began to mindlessly butt itself against the patch of sunlight glowing on one whitewashed, uneven wall. The buzz of its wings merged imperceptibly with the sound of Fenner’s voice....
Jerking himself awake with a start, Bodie valiantly squashed another sigh, pushing his chair back until it was precariously balanced on the two back legs. How much longer was this going to take?
On the thought a clatter of approaching hooves rattled into the room, breaking through the murmur of voices and carrying a sense of urgency with it like a breath of fresh air. Hastily Bodie’s chair was returned to an upright position as a rider trotted his horse through the yard entrance and immediately dismounted. Eyes brightening, the Major watched the new arrival exchange a quick word with the stable boy who ran to hold his horse... and then the visitor turned towards the estate office, drawing a folded sheet of paper from his coat pocket as he approached.
At last! Some distraction. As Bodie eagerly came to his feet and headed for the door he was vaguely aware that Fenner, with a resigned shrug, was returning the pile of reports to their drawer. He had little attention to spare for the bailiff, however, because he had recognised the messenger – it was young Tom Haskell, one of his neighbour Sir Percy Blakeney’s grooms.
Which meant, with any luck at all, that his boredom was at an end – for a while, at least.
Haskell doffed his hat as Bodie drew near, ducking his head in automatic deference.
“Major Bodie? Message for ‘ee, sir, from Sir Percy. Do ‘ee want me t’ wait?”
Bodie, his eyes eagerly scanning the four lines of Percy’s elegant scrawl, shook his head impatiently. “You can return immediately, and tell your master that I am, as always, entirely at his disposal. I will be with him by three o’ clock.”
As Haskell disappeared out of the entrance on his return journey to Blakeney Hall, Bodie turned the other way and made for the kitchen garden and the back way in to the manor house, shouting over his shoulder as he went, “Weston! Get Thunderer saddled and bring him round to the front, quickly now!”
The Major barely heard the brisk acknowledgement, stretching into a trot and mentally reviewing any matters which might come to a head in the next few days, and by the time he had reached the graceful Queen Anne house that was both Petersham Manor and his family home he had his orders ready.
“Charles! – Ah, Dassett -” as the butler appeared, “Find Mrs Fields for me, will you, and meet me upstairs? Thank you. Have you seen Mr Tayl - good, there you are. Now, Charles -”
His young secretary Charles Taylor had appeared as he entered the hall, and flinging hasty but concise instructions at him Major Bodie headed for his room, where he changed swiftly into his oldest and most comfortable clothes and collected the portmanteau his valet kept packed for just such occasions as these. When he emerged from his dressing room the butler and housekeeper had joined Charles and the three stayed at his shoulder, listening to his instructions attentively as they followed him back down the main staircase and across the hall. As Dassett opened the wide, fan-lighted front door, Weston appeared around the corner of the house leading the Major’s big black gelding Thunderer.
“…Should any of our neighbours enquire, I have gone up to Town on business and may then go on to visit relatives in... Westmorland, I think. Yes, that’s suitably remote. When Nicholls returns from his errands...” Bodie considered. If his valet was not yet aware that his master’s odd absences always coincided with a visit to Blakeney Hall, and that during those visits his own services were never required, then he was bird-witted – and Nicholls was far from that. Whatever his conjectures, he kept as close-mouthed about them as did Charles Taylor, and that was all that their master required. “Tell him that I am visiting Sir Percy and that I do not know when I’ll return.”
“Well, that’s true enough, at any rate,” muttered Mrs Fields, with the freedom of an old family servant, and Bodie’s smile widened as she continued. “Now, you take care, sir! All this gallivanting about – it’s past time you settled down!”
Turning to descend the steps her master shrugged her words away, as he always did, and shaking her head in disapproval the housekeeper turned back in to the house while Dassett and Taylor hovered, waiting for any last-minute instructions as Bodie strapped his portmanteau to Thunderer’s saddle. Giving the straps a final, testing jerk, Bodie nodded in satisfaction and mounted, taking the reins in square, competent hands. As Weston stepped smartly away from the restless horse the Major set Thunderer in motion and cantered eagerly away down the drive.
Taylor re-entered the house, leaving the two old family servants to watch their master’s departure in silence. Then Weston grunted. “Huh. That’s that then. Off on one of ‘is starts, an’ no knowin’ when ‘e’ll be back. Tain’t right, not with Sir ‘enry’s childern to mind the place for.”
“Less of that,” admonished Dassett as he turned to go back into the house. “Major Bodie’s been looking after himself since he was a young lad desperate for a pair of colours. Before your time, that would be,” he added repressively, depressing any pretensions from the head groom. “He’s been away on and off since he was fourteen, don’t forget, and he’s always turned up again... even from fighting them murdering rebels in America. He’ll be back soon enough.”
I hope , thought the butler. I do hope...
It did not take Major Bodie long to reach Blakeney Hall. It was over six miles by road but on horseback, using old track ways and bridle paths, it was less than three – and in the dry July weather there was no mud to slow him down. The Bodie estate at Petersham shared a boundary with the far more extensive Blakeney lands at Richmond and Bodie had grown very familiar with the route since the spring before last. It was still a few minutes to three when he cantered up the gravelled drive leading to the Blakeney stable yard.
A groom ran to take his horse as he dismounted and hurriedly unfastened his portmanteau, then Bodie set out with hasty strides towards the house, where he saw the tall, slender and immaculately clad figure of Sir Percy Blakeney approaching.
Blakeney’s sky blue eyes were alight with enthusiasm and nervous energy, and Bodie felt his pulse leap in response. The leader of their small, secret band had a mission for them, that was clear – and that meant danger and excitement and all the things that were so depressingly absent from Bodie’s everyday existence, where the invisible chains of family duty tying him to the mind-numbing domesticity of a country squire’s routine seemed to bind him ever more tightly with every day that passed.
“Ah! William – excellent! You’re dashed quick, old fellow, just as I hoped! This way, this way – you have enough packed? Of course, I might have known – it must be that military training...”
Still talking, Sir Percy ushered Bodie straight through the house and into a coach with a four horse team in the harnesses and a coachman seated ready on the box. As soon as he had settled onto the cushions next to Blakeney and opposite Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Hastings, both of whom looked as bewildered – and as eager - as Bodie, Sir Percy leaned out of the window and shouted, “Spring ‘em, Faringdon!”
With a sudden lunge which pushed Bodie back into the cushions, the coach leaped forward down the drive, and Percy leaned back against the velvet cushions and flashed one of his wide, irresistible smiles at his three companions. “Tally ho!” he announced. “We’re off to Paris, friends – and we don’t have much time.”
“Do we ever?” queried Bodie, his blue eyes dancing, and Blakeney nodded, his lean, mobile features suddenly unwontedly serious.
“Indeed, William, but this time, I fear ‘tis all the more true. I can only pray that we reach Paris speedily.”
Andrew Ffoulkes opened his mouth to ask a question, but Percy waved him to silence. “Wait until we reach the Day Dream, Andrew, if you please. Edward’s cousin John and young George Fanshawe will meet us aboard and I will give you your instructions then.”
The large young man sitting opposite Percy nodded humbly, and Bodie suppressed a smile. Sir Andrew was several years younger than his leader and physically he would make two of Blakeney, but there was no doubting the identity of the leader of their little enterprise. Ffoulkes was an uncomplicated soul whose steady loyalty made him an excellent second-in-command, but Sir Percy was the unquestioned authority in all of these madcap affairs, and Bodie was happy to have it so.
Major Bodie was by far the oldest member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, but his distinguished army career gave him an experience unparalleled among the other members, and it was that, along with his undimmed appetite for any activities that promised more danger and excitement than gambling, shooting, racing his curricle or riding to hounds - no matter at how neck-or-nothing a pace - which had inspired Percy to recruit him when the two men had met at a cricket match in the spring of the previous year. Each had been playing for their own village and Bodie had clean bowled Percy with one of his famed ‘Pitchers’, but that had not prevented the two from hitting it off immediately. It seemed that Percy did not give a fig for the older man’s reputation as a confirmed bachelor with little or no interest in the ladies and a habit of surrounding himself with male company, or that despite his status as a recognised Corinthian he did not belong to the ‘Carlton House set’, the friends of the Prince Regent – unlike Blakeney himself.
For Bodie’s part, anything which rid him of the creeping ennui which had afflicted him ever since coming home was worth trying... and he had found that participation in Blakeney’s madcap enterprises, while by turns grubby, inconvenient, and bloody uncomfortable, had never been less than exciting and was frequently damned dangerous – and he had loved every nerve-tingling second of it. By now, close on sixteen months after he had first been recruited, he was the second most regular companion on one of Percy’s ‘little expeditions’.
Ffoulkes was the only other member of the League to see Paris more regularly than Bodie – but then, he was Percy’s closest friend and most intimate confidant... and Percy had hinted to Bodie once or twice recently that once Andrew married, as was due to take place at the end of the year, Percy would not in conscience feel that he could drag Ffoulkes away from his new wife. Bodie had no such encumbrances, nor was likely to have – a younger son whose older brother had obediently produced the ‘heir and a spare’ that duty required before his untimely death on the hunting field, Major Bodie was under no obligation to marry or beget an heir, and given his preferences he would never do so of his own free will.
The coach rumbled on along the toll road which sliced through the open countryside on the south bank of the Thames, running through Putney to the small village of Clapham. Here they abandoned the wide turnpike, and Bodie made a grab for one of the leather travelling straps as they swayed onto the rutted surface of Camberwell Lane. Even the superb suspension of Blakeney’s expensive vehicle was unable to fully cope with the holes and ruts of the narrow road, and the travellers gripped their straps and hung on like grim death as the coach lurched and rocked its way down the long, dusty way. Occasionally its occupants caught a glimpse of open fields of almost-ripe standing corn, or the crowded fruit orchards and vegetable gardens whose produce was destined for the markets of South London through the high hedges lining the road, before they rattled through the rapidly-growing village of Camberwell.
There was a concerted sigh of relief when the coach finally returned to the turnpike on the outskirts of the smoky, busy little riverside settlement of Deptford, and Bodie raised his eyebrows at the man at his side. They had not turned on to the Kent road at New Cross...
“Is the Day Dream at Greenwich, then?” he enquired, thinking with cheerful anticipation that this would speed matters along, and Blakeney nodded.
“There will be only six of us on this little outing,” he said after a moment. “Everyone else is out of London - this heat has driven them all to the country early. Margot is visiting old Rochambeau, in Bath. She will be vexed with me for leaving her behind, I fear, but really there is no alternative. The tide turns at six and we dare not miss it!”
His hearers blinked a little at the determination in Percy’s voice, and he smiled a little as he saw their astonishment. “Have patience. You will hear all about it soon enough...”
They clattered into Greenwich even as Percy spoke, past the sudden green rise of Greenwich Park and down to the private moorings where the Day Dream was berthed. Blakeney was opening his door before the coach had stopped, jumping down and impatiently gesturing to his companions to follow him as he boarded. Behind him as he descended the precipitous steps leading to the main cabin Bodie could hear Captain Briggs bellowing orders to cast off and nodded approvingly to himself at Percy’s planning – Blakeney must have sent word ahead of his need for haste.
In Blakeney’s large and luxuriously-appointed cabin they found the tall, lanky John Hastings, and a young, fresh-faced lad - George Fanshawe, the newest member of the League. Both were on their feet, too excited to sit in the comfortable chairs with which the cabin was equipped, and both were clearly waiting anxiously for Percy’s arrival.
Percy gestured at the large table occupying the centre of the compartment, and as the five men obediently seated themselves around it Blakeney poured them all glasses of wine and got down to business.
“It’s quite remarkably simple,” he said, his eyes bright with excitement. “Jacques Benet has sent word that the Marquis de Vernaye is still alive!”
Benet. Bodie recognised the name. The man was a minor clerk for the Committee of General Security and had frequently sent the League details of those scheduled for the guillotine – but he had no idea who this Marquis was...
Ffoulkes was speaking, his handsome face wreathed in astonishment.
“Vernaye! Your cousin! But I thought he was killed in the Commune riots two years ago!”
“Indeed, Andrew, so I thought – and so did his family. The Vernayes were among the first families I brought to England,” Percy explained to the others, “And when I went to their estate to collect them I found that the Marquis was away, attending the Legislative Assembly in Paris. Before I could discover his fate – well, you all know what happened. I was forced to make haste to Paris to rescue Armand St-Just, and was almost clean bowled myself by the Commune massacres! It was a deuced close-run thing...
“It was not until we returned to England that I discovered that Gilbert had been arrested only a few days before Armand and had, therefore, presumably met the fate that had so nearly been ours. I was never able to discover exactly what had happened to him, but when I heard nothing more it seemed certain that he was dead. Now I have another chance! I have known Gilbert d’Assailly all my life, and we are going to save him.”
Percy’s voice was as serious and as determined as they had ever heard it, and silence reigned for a few moments before Bodie asked,
“Which prison, Percy?”
“Ah, now that is where we have a small advantage. L’Abbaye.”
Everyone nodded at that. L’Abbaye prison was old, overcrowded, and not as carefully guarded as other prisons like La Force or the Conciergerie – a thought which made Hastings look up, his sharp-featured face intent.
“Why is he still in there, Percy? L’Abbaye is not much used these days.”
“Because that was where he was sent when he was first arrested, and they still haven’t moved him! In fact, he has had more than a little luck. It was thought that Vernaye was killed when the mob swept through the building during the riots. But somehow he survived the massacre and in all the subsequent chaos he was confused with another prisoner. For almost two years Gilbert d’Assailly has been known as François Lebrun, a sneak thief. Gilbert ain’t a stupid man – one assumes he knew what would happen to him if he revealed his true identity, so he kept silent.”
Bodie was frowning. “Then how was he discovered?”
“His luck finally ran out – it was bound to happen eventually. A new governor was appointed to L’Abbaye, and unfortunately for Gilbert, not only is he from Normandy and is familiar with the d’Assailly family, but he is also a man who takes his job seriously – he toured the prison from top to bottom as soon as he took over and recognised d’Assailly immediately.”
“A conscientious officer of the State?” Bodie feigned astonishment. “Now there’s a thing...”
Percy threw out one hand in a graceful gesture of acknowledgement. “Touché, William! Yes, you win our bet – we have finally encountered an official of the Republic who is neither venal nor stupid. However...” his smile widened, “Even you must admit that it took us some time to do so!”
Bodie laughed and nodded agreement, and Percy returned to his briefing, glad to see that the Major’s teasing of his leader had – as Bodie had doubtless intended – eased the tension somewhat, allowing young Fanshawe to relax. There was no doubt of George’s courage, but this was his first mission and he was understandably nervous. With Bodie’s experience of green young Army officers it was not wonderful that he had seen it before Blakeney, and he had done exactly the right thing. Once again Percy thanked his lucky stars for that cricket match...
“To find a prominent aristocrat like Gilbert left alive is a godsend for Robespierre.” Percy continued easily, showing no hint of his thoughts. “A show trial and execution will silence his critics - for a few more months at least. Gilbert d’Assailly is to be tried before the National Convention in a few days’ time, and will be executed the following day. So as I said before -” he flashed a smile at Bodie “- we don’t have a great deal of time.
“Now, to business -” Percy looked around at them all, “This is what we are going to do.”
* * *
Paris seemed its usual teeming, grimy, chaotic self as Blakeney and his men made their way through the dirty and crowded cobbled streets to one of the quiet, out-of-the-way hotels which the League occasionally used. This one was considered relatively safe because in the early days of the Terror, Percy had masterminded the escape of the landlord’s daughter and son-in-law, both of whom had had the misfortune to be in the employ of one of Danton’s political enemies. Citizen Bonnard would never betray the saviour of his beloved daughter, though Blakeney was careful not to stretch the man’s loyalty too far. He paid the inflated prices of Revolutionary Paris for his room and board, as did his men, and he never involved the Bonnards or their hotel in the affairs of the League.
Once settled in, everyone scattered to their assigned tasks. Percy left immediately for a meeting with Benet, Ffoulkes and Fanshawe were sent to observe the headquarters of the Committee of General Security and to check Robespierre’s schedule at the Palais de Justice, while the Hastings cousins went off to contact Mazzarini, the flamboyant artist and forger who was one of Sir Percy’s oldest friends. Major Bodie, meanwhile, was sent to consult another of Blakeney’s agents in Paris – Planchet, the highly successful, very fashionable tailor whose public persona was that of a loyal follower of the Revolution who even numbered Robespierre among his clients – but who was in reality one of the longest-serving members of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Like Bodie’s maternal relatives, Planchet was a Huguenot, and had suffered for it under the rule of the House of Bourbon. The Major had once wondered why a member of the Huguenots, a group who – judging by the stories told in the Bodie household - had more reason than most to hate the Kings of France, should support Percy in his quixotic enterprise. He’d asked Planchet once, and the tailor’s reply had been short but succinct. “If a dog bites me, should I then slaughter all dogs?” Then he had flashed a quick smile at Bodie. “Besides, my father and Sir Percy’s were great and close friends. I don’t betray my friends...”
When Major Bodie entered Planchet’s shop the tailor recognised him immediately. Impatiently sending his apprentice out on an errand, the compact, lively Frenchman hurried over to his unexpected visitor, red curls bouncing with enthusiasm and arms spread wide. “Guillaume, mon ami! It has been too long!”
Embracing the taller man before he could avoid it, the tailor kissed him on both cheeks in the effusive Continental way and ushered him through to his private workroom at the back of the shop, talking non-stop about trivial matters while his eyes flickered around the workshop, checking that it was truly empty.
“And how is your family?” he enquired eventually, having sat the Major down at a workbench where a pattern for a new waistcoat was in the process of being cut out, retrieved a bottle of wine from a cupboard hidden behind a rack of half-sewn garments and ensured his visitor had a full glass. “The young Georges – is he still at school? And Heloise must be quite the young lady now, surely!...”
Bodie made little response to the tailor’s enquiries – Bodie’s half-Huguenot blood, clothed as it was in apparently irreproachable English gentility, had always fascinated Planchet even before he had discovered that like himself, the Major’s preferences were for men rather than women. Now, catching the expression in the Englishman’s dark blue eyes, Planchet fell silent. Then he said softly, “My apologies, Guillaume. You are here with Sir Percy, is it not so? What do you require of me this time?”
Bodie looked around, confirming what he already knew – that there was no-one within earshot – and leaned forward, dropping his voice. “When do you visit Robespierre again?”
Abruptly abandoning his excitable manner, Planchet became all business. “There are no fittings scheduled for at least a week. Why?”
“We need papers authorising the movement of a prisoner from L’Abbaye prison to the Conciergerie, in readiness for his trial... one day early.”
“L’Abbaye! – Ah. Vernaye.”
“Thunder an’ turf! Does everyone in Paris know about this damned Marquis?”
The Major was half-amused, half-annoyed, and Planchet could not repress a smile.
“Well, but it is a great coup on Robespierre’s part, n’est-pas? Vernaye is not only Sir Percy’s cousin, you know – he was a Groom of the Bedchamber at Versailles, and an elected member of the Estates-General. Besides, he sat with the Girondins in the Legislative Assembly – a moderate, in the days when there were such things.”
Bodie gave a short, understanding nod. “And therefore an enemy of Robespierre and his Jacobins.”
“And the Scarlet Pimpernel wishes to rescue him! But of course! It will enrage Robespierre and reflect badly on him in the National Convention... hmm.” Planchet tapped his chin thoughtfully, “There is a minor clerk in the offices of the Committee who has requested a coat made by the magnificent, the only Planchet ... I could pay a visit... do you require the papers blank or signed?”
Bodie shrugged dismissively. “It does not matter – Mazzarini has Chauvelin’s signature perfected, we can always -”
“Mais non, you must not!” Abruptly the tailor jumped to his feet, visibly agitated. “Citizen Chauvelin is no longer Robespierre’s shadow! He has disappeared – from under the noses of the soldiers sent to arrest him!”
“But – little more than a month ago he was -”
“Yes, yes, bien sûr, but when he failed to recover the Dauphin -! And then the lady Marguerite turned her back on France to go back to her English milord... Robespierre saw that last, especially, as a slap in the face, and from what I hear he was most displeased – and he blamed Chauvelin for not ensuring that she stayed in France where she belonged.”
Planchet could not repress a smile of intense satisfaction at the thought. “Then there was the matter of the ransom, even if he never did have to pay it – and the false Dauphin. It has never been a good idea to place Robespierre too much in one’s debt.”
Planchet’s pockmarked features were sly, and he looked up at the Major and tapped the side of his nose in a universal gesture. “It has never been said that Robespierre was stupid. Once he’d had time to think, he must have realised that something about that affair did not quite – what is the English expression? – did not quite...‘add up’, and after that it was only a matter of time... you weren’t here in Paris for l’affaire Chevalier D’Orly, were you?”
Bodie shook his head and dropped his voice once more to a soft murmur. The shop was empty, but there was no point in taking chances. Anyone overhearing his accent would be able to identify him sight unseen – he did not speak the usual city patois.
“No, I was arranging his transport and escape route that time out. It had to be unusually secret, a once-only route, to get the boy to England as safely and as quickly as possible. I remember it well, it was a bugg- it was very difficult to arrange. I’d rather have been in Paris any day.... So, what has happened to Chauvelin?”
Planchet leaned over and topped up Major Bodie’s wine glass. “It was barely three days after Sir Percy and Lady Blakeney left Paris,” he said, smiling broadly. “Robespierre issued an order for the arrest of Paul Chauvelin – as a traitor to the Revolution – you know, the usual charge.” Bodie nodded, listening intently. Judging by his reminiscent smile, Planchet was enjoying this, and the Major could not blame him – it was wonderful to hear how the Revolutionary leadership were inexorably destroying their most loyal followers – and themselves. Even Danton had gone... and now Chauvelin!
“The Convention obediently passed the order – just after legislation permitting the Tribunal to execute traitors without a trial had been implemented! Convenient, n’est-ce pas? The soldiers went straight to Chauvelin’s offices in the Palais de Justice, which he had entered less than half-an-hour previously - only to find them empty... Warning posters have been put up all over the city and a watch put on the gates, and I’m sure that he is still in hiding somewhere inside the city. Robespierre is making no great effort to find him, though.”
“I suppose – as long as he’s removed any chance for Chauvelin to tell the National Convention what he knows... and now Chauvelin’s a condemned traitor he can be shot on sight, I believe?” Planchet nodded, and Bodie shrugged a little, able to appreciate the logic of Robespierre’s actions. Brutal, but – how very practical.
“Well then – why should Robespierre take it any further? He has other matters to concern him, no doubt. Who has replaced Chauvelin as Robespierre’s aide – that little rat Fumier? He has acted for Robespierre before, I seem to recall – when Chauvelin was out of favour last year.”
“You are well-informed, my friend, but no – not this time. Fumier has taken to his bed, and it seems to be genuine. The rumour is that he is dying. His lungs are rotting... Robespierre’s new aide is Citizen Saint-Just, now that he has returned from conquering the Low Countries for the Revolution.”
“So Louis Saint-Just is back in Paris! Mazzarini has forged his signature before now – I’m sure of it.” Major Bodie thought about it, then nodded once. “Yes, get the papers as blanks, if you please, Planchet – we’ll make sure they’re authorised.”
“As you wish. I will leave them with Antoine at the Café de Fraternité, as usual. Bon chance, Guillaume!”
* * *
L’Abbaye prison was a looming grey mass in the dull light of a cloudy July morning. The squad of Revolutionary Guards escorting the prison coach made an unexpected splash of colour in their bright uniforms as they clattered importantly up the narrow street to the broken, once-imposing front gate of the old prison, the officer’s tricolour sash brightest of all.
Sweeping through the gate – whose doors were incapable of forming a barrier to anything since the Commune riots had swept through the prison – the small party trotted into the narrow courtyard and came to a stop at the plain wooden door marking the front entrance, seemingly oblivious to the looming false turrets at each corner of the front façade which were clearly designed to overlook anyone approaching the building.
Moving at a pace which left the two guards flanking the entrance gaping after him in wonderment, the tall, smartly turned-out officer dismounted and strode briskly towards the door, barely pausing long enough to demand admittance of the porter, who took one look at the immaculate uniform and shuffled hastily aside. Closely followed by two of his men the officer disappeared into the dingy interior, leaving the two sentries to return to their accustomed lethargy as the four remaining soldiers of the escort dismounted to await their commander’s return. The driver of the coach, however, stayed in his seat, well muffled against the dampness in the early morning air...
The new governor of L’Abbaye was a sober, brown-haired, neatly-dressed man who seemed at first glance to be utterly ordinary in every way – until one saw the fanaticism of the True Believer burning in his eyes. His office, when the officer and his men reached it, was as austere as a monk’s cell and showed all the signs of hasty cleaning. It still smelled faintly of soap.
When the officer entered without knocking Governor Rigaud looked up, his mouth opening to issue a blistering reprimand – only to bite it back when he saw the tall, broad-shouldered man at the door. The man’s unmistakeably military bearing told Rigaud immediately that unlike most of the officers of the Revolutionary Guard whom Rigaud had met – and who he referred to, though only to himself, as ‘gutter sweepings’, and despised as possessing no true revolutionary spirit – this man was a fitting representative of the Guard which was the military arm of the great Republic.
The visitor’s oddly shaped black eyebrows arched in mild surprise, and Rigaud found himself coming to his feet with a stammering apology.
“My regrets, Citizen Captain, I was not told you were coming, I would have greeted you correctly –”
The mild expression vanished into a resigned irritation with which Rigaud had to sympathise. He himself was continually inveighing against the inefficiency of the petty bureaucrats who did little to truly serve the Revolution and never showed any respect for the importance of his own position.
“You have had no orders concerning the ci-devant d’Assailly?”
“Er – no, Citizen Captain. I have heard nothing since I was informed of the date of his trial.” It does not surprise me, his voice seemed to say.
The officer muttered something under his breath and then drew forth a set of papers, handing them to the governor. When Rigaud glanced down at them he saw, just as he expected, an Order for Transport, signed by Louis Saint-Just, the Chairman of the Convention himself, for Citizen Captain Grospierre to take the prisoner d’Assailly to the Conciergerie prison in readiness for his trial. This was part of the routine for prisoners due for trial, though the move usually occurred a little closer to the start of proceedings – but then, d’Assailly was an important prisoner and Rigaud surmised that Citizen Robespierre wanted him safely incarcerated in the formidable security of the Conciergerie as soon as possible. It was understandable – the Revolutionary Tribunal sat in the Palais de Justice, and the Conciergerie prison was part of the same building.
“Of course, Citizen Captain Grospierre.” Rigaud said, folding the papers and returning them to the officer. “If you will come with me, I will personally escort you to the ci-devant’s cell.”
The officer stepped back and waved Rigaud forward. “Excellent, Citizen Governor Rigaud. If you please -? I have a schedule to keep.”
There were no further delays, and soon the coach holding the bewildered Marquis was rumbling away from the prison, accompanied by the six-man escort and its commander... an odd number, really, mused Rigaud as he returned to his office. Escorts usually consisted of a squad of eight soldiers – but who was he to argue with the great Citizen Chairman Louis Saint-Just?...
In a quiet backstreet a warehouse door creaked open just as a large coach came round the corner. The coachman evinced little surprise – he drove the coach through the entrance and the door was immediately closed behind him. Then he dismounted from the box and opened the door of the coach, unwrapping the scarf which had been wrapped so closely around his neck and lower face under the sheltering brim of his wide-brimmed hat.
“Lord save us, cousin, I’m dashed glad to see you!” said Sir Percy Blakeney.
* * *
Major Bodie walked nonchalantly out of the ramshackle building which held Mazzarini’s lodgings, whistling Ça Ira softly under his breath and feeling much more relaxed in his own clothes, old and comfortable as they were. That Captain’s uniform had been extremely tight and far too hot, though nothing to compare to poor Andrew’s – but the disguises had worked, and now Percy had d’Assailly safe in one of the properties he owned in the city. A few days’ rest and feeding up after the ordeal of prison – the Marquis had looked surprisingly healthy, apparently he’d been able to persuade one of the guards to bring him little extras in return for writing letters for him – and they’d be away.
Bodie frowned a little at this last thought, uneasy without quite knowing why, then had to step out of the way of a group of men who pushed past him, shouting and singing and making for the bedlam of voices that were coming from the end of the street. Brought out of his introspection, the Major looked round and realised where he was. Hastily he changed direction away from the Barrière Ranverse and its huge, red-painted guillotine. It sounded as if the mob were already baying for blood even though the first execution was not scheduled for another hour.
The execution rate had been dropping recently – perhaps they were feeling cheated. Although the huge crowds of earlier days no longer turned out save for really exceptional victims, a beautiful woman or a great aristocrat – like d’Assailly – there was a ‘hard core’ of faithful, which included the infamous tricoteuses, who never missed a day, and they were becoming increasingly vocal in their disappointment at the lack of victims.
It was actually happening at last - Robespierre was losing control of the sans-culottes. The Major could only hope that the Chairman of the Committee of Public Safety hung on to his position until after the League escaped – it was going to be difficult enough getting out of Paris as it was, with Blakeney unable to put a full escape plan in place in the short time he’d had to put this mission together. Trying to leave with Robespierre no longer in control and the streets ruled once again, as they had been in the very early days of the Revolution, by the mob... it would be virtually impossible to escape the city unscathed.
He returned to the planned rendezvous at Fat André’s small basement restaurant to find the others all agog, gathered around a Lord Hastings positively fizzing with suppressed excitement. Bodie looked around at them, one eyebrow arching.
“Oh, do go on, then,” he invited. “What’s got you all of a twitter?”
Percy, once more the immaculately turned-out English aristocrat, raised his quizzing glass and subjected Major Bodie to a withering stare. Bodie remained cheerfully unaffected, and Percy’s lips quirked briefly. “Sink me, William, but you show a distressing lack of sensibility,” he murmured, then, abruptly dropping the foppish manner, nodded to Hastings. “So, Edward,” he drawled, “Give us your news – but softly...”
Huddled around the table over bowls of Fat André’s locally-famous bouillon, in the restaurant whose owner, like so many people in Paris, seemed to owe Percy a favour, the League heard the full details. Mazzarini had sent word via Lord Hastings that he had managed to arrange a meeting. If Percy should go to the Café de Rousseau on the following day at two, he would find one of the artist’s many criminal acquaintances sitting at a certain chess table and ready to do business over a game. This one, the artist had assured Hastings, could smuggle the whole party out of Paris via the Seine. He captained a river barge, and due to his pre-Revolution career as a river smuggler that barge held several disguised compartments which had been used before to get people out of Paris.
The Major listened in frowning silence. He trusted Mazzarini, of course he did – but...
When the others left the restaurant, drifting out in elaborate and slightly overdone unconcern, Bodie tackled Blakeney. “I don’t like this, Percy. It sounds almost too good to be true – and far too convenient. Besides, how much is this so-called river smuggler going to learn about us – about you - during this escape?”
Percy let his friend have his say. When he fell silent Percy studied him briefly, then said,
“Odd’s fish, Major, did you think I hadn’t considered this? And just as a bye the bye – has not everything so far been.... just a little too easy?”
By God, yes! Percy was right! That was what had been bothering him! Eyes widening, Bodie looked back at Percy, who nodded once.
“I thought so,” he murmured, then cocked his head at his companion. “But have you also taken this into account, my oh-so-cautious friend – our hopefully late and most unlamented acquaintance Chauvelin is no longer plaguing us, and his little friend Fumier is on his deathbed. Chauvelin was a foe to be reckoned with, though I might like to pretend otherwise. You’ve never encountered the fellow, I know, but I have no doubt that Andrew could regale you with a few tales! Saint-Just is far less of a threat, clever though he is. His mind runs in straight lines to logical conclusions, as unlike Chauvelin’s devious ways as one could imagine.”
“What do you think happened to him then? To Chauvelin?”
Percy shrugged. “I have no idea, William, and I care less. With friend Chauvelin gone, our opposition is less organised and far, far less dangerous – I am content with that.”
The Major had to agree, and Percy turned the subject. “Now to business,” he said. “Tomorrow, at the Café de Rousseau, I want you and Andrew to...”
* * *
Major Bodie leaned idly back against the wall opposite the ornately-carved and gilded windows of the Café de Rousseau, whittling at a piece of wood and watching the crowded, busy Rue Saint-Antoine with eyes that were sullen with boredom in a darkly-tanned, unshaven face below a dirty red Republican cap. Beside him, also grimy, tanned and unshaven, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, dressed like Bodie in the long trousers, short jacket and rough shoes of a sans-culotte, stirred uneasily.
Ffoulkes was watching a ragged figure, enveloped in an old, out-at-elbows black coat which had seen better days and wearing an even more battered chapeau-bras whose sad-looking tricolour rosette was in danger of falling off altogether, approach the door of the café. Guarded as it was by a smartly-dressed doorman with a remarkably superior expression, Bodie did not give much for the man’s chances of gaining entry.
“Something?” murmured the Major behind a yawn.
Andrew relaxed slowly, still watching the beggar – for that was what the ragged figure looked like – as he was brusquely turned away from the entrance. The man moved off to lean against the wall a few feet from the ornate restaurant frontage, folding his arms and ducking his head into his collar so that his hat sheltered his face against the unseasonably cold northerly wind which was sweeping down the long, almost straight slope of Saint-Antoine and adding a chill to the air despite the hot summer sun. Even this so-called revolution had its beggars, Bodie reflected drily behind his mask of indifference.
“No... I thought for a moment that I knew that man,” Andrew replied softly, in answer to the Major’s question. “But I’m not sure now. Just – the way he moved...”
Bodie considered the hunched, miserable figure on the other side of the road whose gaze behind that upturned collar still seemed to be fixed on the café entrance. Poor devil had probably been hoping for a handout, he thought vaguely, then nudged Ffoulkes. “Duty calls,” he murmured in a voice so soft it barely reached his companion’s ears. “Here’s Percy...”
As he spoke Blakeney’s tall figure approached at a brisk walk, scarf wrapped around his face and chin and tall beaver hat pulled low over his brow, and entered the café. The Major’s lips tightened.
“What?”
“For someone who’s so good at disguise, our beloved leader shows little sense of discretion when out of it! Any Republican agent who saw him would know him immediately for an aristo – the way he walks, that damn-your-eyes arrogance in his every move...”
Bodie sighed a little, and Andrew flicked a brief, curious glance sideways.
“He hasn’t been caught yet.”
“Chauvelin managed it, two years ago,” the Major pointed out, adding in a whisper, “Percy’s told me all about that – it happened before I joined you, didn’t it? And - yes, I know Percy got himself, Armand and Lady Blakeney out of the trap, but nevertheless... it was clever.”
“If you care nothing for honour or chivalry or – or anything that truly matters, then yes, I suppose it was.” Andrew’s voice was tart. “You sound as if you admire him!”
Bodie barely repressed a chuckle, knowing the boy would assume it was aimed at him... Lord, but Ffoulkes was an innocent! Had Bodie ever been so... so young?
“Not admire, exactly,” he said carefully, “But respect, yes. It’s always a good idea to respect – or even overestimate – the ability of your enemy, Ffoulkes.” Andrew snorted, but quietly. Bodie ignored him. “Percy, for one, is rather glad that Chauvelin is out of the picture – at least, seems to be out of the picture,” his native caution made him add, “- and so am I.”
Andrew was drawing breath to reply – probably with some heat, reflected the Major cynically - when a distant commotion drew their eyes to the far end of the street.
And suddenly all conversation was forgotten.
A squad of soldiers, led by an officer on horseback and a man in the head-to-toe black which seemed to be de rigeur for the agents of the Committee of General Security, were labouring steadily up the long stretch of Saint-Antoine towards them, pushing their way through the crowds with a dogged determination which suggested that they knew exactly what they were doing – and who they were hunting.
As one the two men eased away from the wall and crossed to the café, ducking behind the carts and wagons rumbling past in the road and keeping behind the men and women on the crowded pavement and therefore, they hoped, out of the sight of the approaching soldiers. Seeing their rough clothes and unshaven faces, the doorman hesitated – then met Major Bodie’s coldly authoritative gaze and hastily stepped aside. Leaving Andrew behind him to watch the man, the Major looked swiftly around the spacious, richly-ornamented room. Well-dressed men and richly-gowned women, the nouveau riche and the intelligentsia of the Revolution, sat playing chess or draughts, drinking coffee and chocolate and tea, their discussions and arguments about art and politics, science and philosophy filling the scented air – but there was no Blakeney. Where in hell’s name -?
A hand tapped him on the shoulder and he whirled - to see Percy’s tall figure leaving the café. Hastily Bodie hurried after, sending a quick look down the hill as he came out into the street to see that the soldiers were closer now – much closer. In fact the front rank was stumbling to a stop and raising their muskets -
Screaming, the crowd scattered, and the world splintered, fragments spinning, everything happening at once.
“Move damn you!” snarled Bodie - to himself? To Andrew and Percy? Who knew? - as the street emptied and left them suddenly exposed, out in the sunlit air with the tall stone walls on either side closing in...
Abruptly, ridiculously, he felt himself being shoved savagely aside as -
- Ba-BaBAMM!!
Even as the Major felt that once-familiar hot whip of a musket ball flying past his head, he heard a grunt of pain from behind him.
No! Not Percy!
Heart sinking, he spun round - but there was Percy, staggering but unhurt! Safe - even as Bodie drew a sigh of relief, as the world re-knit itself and began to move in its accustomed way once more, there was movement on the ground at their feet. A ragged figure, sprawled face down on bloody cobbles... still breathing.
The beggar that they had seen earlier! He’d taken a musket ball for Blakeney -
“No time!”
Percy sent a harried glance towards the soldiers running towards them, muskets clubbed, as Bodie helped Andrew haul the barely-conscious figure of their saviour to his feet. Together the three of them began to lurch away. The Frenchman’s head hung forward, long, unkempt hair shrouding the face, and his two supporters carefully adjusted their grasp with frantic haste, trying to avoid the sluggishly-bleeding hole in one broad if thin-fleshed shoulder. Bodie quickly grabbed for Percy’s proffered scarf, wadding it into a ball and shoving it over the wound as the three Englishmen kept moving, pulling the coat tight to hold the rough dressing in place.
Above the Major’s bent head and deftly-moving hands Andrew looked over at his leader. “He saved your life, Percy - we can’t just leave him!” the young Englishman was beginning, when Percy waved him silent.
“I know, Andrew, I know! That wasn’t what I – here!”
They were half-running, half-staggering up the uneven pavé of the street, Andrew’s arm around the stranger’s waist and the Frenchman’s undamaged right arm across Bodie’s shoulders. Behind them the soldiers were closing fast, shouting triumphantly, their booted feet clattering on the cobbles and their accoutrements rattling...
Now Percy swung abruptly through a half-open wooden gate which he slammed shut behind them, down a narrow passageway open to the sky past two other doors. Then he ducked into the third, down some steps, out of another door, through a seemingly deserted house and out on to a completely different and much narrower street with washing hanging above their heads and old, half-timbered upper storeys nearly touching over a filthy, only partly-cobbled road with a stinking open sewer running down the middle. Large, muscular men stood by the doors, watching them pass, and women - and the occasional young man - leaned out of the windows overhead, chattering and pointing, but no-one tried to stop them.
“Thunder an’ turf, Percy, you never fail to astonish me... how long have you been coming to Paris to know it so well?”
Major Bodie’s voice, sharp with amazement, made Percy smile. “I used this little run around to escape from Chauvelin’s men once upon a time,” he began chattily as they resumed their walk, in much less of a hurry.
“Really,” came a deep, rough-toned voice, the English fluent and almost unaccented. It was from the figure hanging between Bodie and Andrew. “It’s no wonder then that we never caught you. How is it that you are so au fait with the whores’ district – or shouldn’t I ask.”
The shaggy head lifted, to reveal a broad, striking countenance, in which two green-blue eyes met Blakeney’s astonished gaze with a malicious gleam lurking in their depths.
“Odd’s fish!” swore Percy, staring. “Chauvelin!”
One well-shaped eyebrow arched in mocking enquiry. “No play on words, Sir Percy? No little jokes at the expense of my name? You disappoint me...”
The voice, wavering and tight with pain despite the rigid control clearly being exerted by its owner, trailed away abruptly as the head dropped, Chauvelin’s body suddenly a dead weight dragging Bodie down... with a muffled oath the Major strengthened his grip and glared at Andrew who, white-faced, had slackened his own grasp, staring in shock at the shabby body slumped between them.
“Fiend seize it, Andrew, don’t you dare drop him! I’ve got to have a proper look at that wound, but not here!”
“But – it’s Chauvelin!” stammered Ffoulkes. “We can’t help him! He – he killed Tony! And George Danby, and – we just can’t! He’s an enemy of everything we -”
“- Don’t you preach to me, puppy!” snapped Bodie, strengthening his own grip as Andrew’s loosened further. “Of course he tried to capture you or kill you, any way he could! He was with the Committee of General Security then – he was doing his duty!”
Seeing Ffoulkes’s closed, hostile expression, the Major took a deep breath and added, quietly, “How many Frenchmen have you killed on these missions, do you think? Not only his fellow countrymen, but fellow Republicans, or even his fellows in the police? How many men do you think I’ve killed, for that matter? Am I then a murderer?”
“That’s different – you were at war!”
“Were we? Fifty years – ten years, even, before the war, those I was fighting were as English as you or I – damme, this is neither the time nor the place! Just you listen to me, Andrew Ffoulkes.” Major Bodie’s voice was harsh, but Ffoulkes could not interpret the complicated emotions behind that voice.
“I have seen war. I have killed - yes, and tortured too, when it was necessary, to get the information we needed – and because I did it in the name of my King and my country, does that pardon me? I do not see that this man –” he nodded at Chauvelin’s unconscious body, “Has done ought more reprehensible than any other, in all the, the – damnable mad chaos of this bloody, man-eating revolution... and like it or not, he has just taken a musket ball for Percy!”
“Yes indeed. Which, much though I dislike it, means that I owe him something... and I pay my debts.”
Blakeney’s voice was grim but determined, and Bodie relaxed. Hostile as Ffoulkes was, he could no more disobey Percy than he could fly. Chauvelin would not be abandoned now...
* * *
The spacious, elegantly-proportioned room was dim. Moth-eaten but still solid curtains were drawn partially across the tall windows against the golden light of a sunny summer’s evening, and the steady illumination from the generous fire – now settled into glowing coals rather than leaping flames - cloaked the corners in shadow and left the high ceiling enshrouded in gloom. Just as well, reflected Bodie, recalling the long, dust-covered cobwebs that festooned the cracked, ornamented plaster above his head everywhere except over the bed in the corner, where he’d made an effort to ensure that no unexpected visitors were likely to drop on the bed’s unfortunate occupant.
The liquid in the shallow dish he was heating on the coals fizzed up and began to boil over, and hastily he lifted the dish and strained the concoction it contained through a length of clean muslin into the pottery tankard he had placed ready. Dubiously Bodie eyed the resulting thick liquid, wondering if he had heated it for too long, before deciding that he was correct and standing the tankard in cold water to cool the mixture to a drinkable warmth.
Then he was moving across to the bed and his increasingly restive patient, tankard in hand. Chauvelin was finally beginning to rouse from the stupor which had held him for hours – long enough, thankfully, for the Major to remove the musket ball embedded in Chauvelin’s shoulder and use a generous portion of rough spirits on the sluggishly-bleeding wound to clean it. He had even remained out for the count while Bodie had efficiently packed the wound and bandaged it up with the help of a reluctant Sir Andrew Ffoulkes.
Poor Andrew had looked progressively more green as the ball – luckily it had not shattered on impact, the gunpowder must have been poor quality, like so much of the powder used by the Republican forces - had been dug out and the fiery liquid poured in, and Bodie could only be thankful that the youngster had controlled his nausea. Their dilapidated, once-elegant quarters were on the third floor of a defunct gaming house, and although they had made every effort to remove the worst of the accumulated dust and decay, it would have been impossible to fully clean up the mess if Ffoulkes had lost his last meal.
Sir Andrew had left now, as had Blakeney – gone to get Vernaye to the coast and away to England. Percy would be back, of course. He would never leave one of his own behind, but until then, the task of looking after Chauvelin – and watching him for treachery, just in case – was Major Bodie’s alone. The other members of the League all had their parts to play in the planned escape. It was going to be difficult enough covering Bodie’s intended tasks on the escape route, they simply could not manage to release more than one man to nurse - and guard - Chauvelin. And Percy was certainly not going to allow one of his Parisian friends to do so, thereby allowing Chauvelin to identify part of their French network!
As soon as they got Vernaye away on the Day Dream though, Percy would start back. He would be back in Paris in two weeks or perhaps a little longer – three at the most. The Major was certain he could manage his charge alone for that length of time without too much difficulty, especially as Chauvelin was wounded. And it was that factor which meant that Bodie was the best man to guard their unexpected guest.
Major Bodie, after all, was the one with the most experience with wounds and their treatment. He was far from being an expert physician, as he would be the first to acknowledge, but when he had seen the complete lack of any kind of medical care in the field for his men during his time in the Colonies he had felt obliged to use his few basic skills as best he could. There had been many occasions when the 5th Foot had been far from British aid - fighting a war in which a conscientious officer would never leave his wounded to the ministrations of a populace whose loyalties were, to say the least, uncertain.
Luckily for his soldiers, Major Bodie’s eccentric Great-Aunt Amelia - his favourite aunt and the source of the property in Kent which meant that he would not be his nephew’s pensioner when George came of age in a few years’ time – had been a great user of the stillroom and the herb garden, and the Major had been astonished to find that her rambling monologues to his small but fascinated self as she had wandered about cutting plants and putting them in the basket he had carried for her had actually stuck, somewhere in the back of his head, ready to be called upon when splinting or bandaging, dosing for the runs or for fevers, removing a bullet or – thank the Lord not often – a limb.
And now, when he’d thought – hoped – that he would never again have to tend another wound, he had a patient!
Chauvelin stirred and shifted his head restlessly on the pillow, muttering, and Bodie came out of his thoughts. Without a wasted motion he lifted the man’s head and carefully tipped a portion of liquid into the mouth which opened automatically to receive it, waited for it to be swallowed, then did it again until all the dose was gone, following the acrid-tasting concoction with a cold infusion to replenish the moisture which was being sweated out in the warm summer air and – he hoped – mitigate the fever he knew was coming.
This particular mixture, of cinquefoil and willow bark, was supposed to be good for that, though why they had to be used in an infusion he had no idea – nor why his aunt had always insisted that any such infusion had to be made with boiling water. Not just hot – boiling, and boiling for the duration of the Lord’s Prayer. Bodie had always felt a real fool standing there, watching a pot bubble away merrily as he silently recited ‘Our Father...’, but it was the way Great-Aunt Amelia had always done it, and it did seem to work.
The Major could only be thankful that among the tattered bunches of leaves and roots which Mazzarini had delivered he had recognised a few plants which he actually knew how to use. He had sent Ffoulkes to an apothecary for other useful items like the willow bark, and Planchet had supplied linen for bandages and muslin for straining liquids and wrapping poultices.
Honey and goldenrod mashed and spread on fresh cobwebs – and there were plenty of those lurking in the gloom overhead - which had then been packed into the gaping wound in Chauvelin’s shoulder should draw out any remaining poisons. When no more appeared and the wound seemed clean, he’d use the comfrey root to start the wound healing...
He hoped.
It was good that it was the kind of wound he was used to treating, he told himself, and at least they were inside, and dry, and this high up he could open the window to get a cooling breeze if one was needed. It was odd to realise that the conditions in this decayed old hotel - plenty of water from the well in the yard, a warm fire, a screen to protect from draughts but fresh air available whenever they needed it – were the best he’d ever had for nursing the wounded. Paul Chauvelin would get the best chance that Major Bodie could give him.
But Bodie could not quite muster the proper sense of benevolent detachment this time – not when life had planted him a facer which still had him fighting to regain his equilibrium. When, on that dirty street in the whore’s district, he’d first seen Chauvelin’s face, and heard that deep, rough-toned voice, a bolt of sheer lust had struck straight to his cock, and it had been all he could do to put three words together in his argument with Andrew.
For years William Bodie had dreamed of his ideal lover, someone whose looks and voice combined everything he found handsome in a man. And that elusive figure bore a remarkable resemblance to the attractively battered, almond-eyed countenance of Paul Chauvelin, once a committed Republican, more recently Robespierre’s not-so-loyal aide, but above all and always the implacable enemy of the Scarlet Pimpernel – Bodie’s own leader!
Who said that Fate had no sense of humour?
And when he and Ffoulkes had stripped the unconscious man to put him into bed -!
The Major closed his eyes, swallowing, and tried to remind himself of Chauvelin’s reputation for going through women like a fox through a henhouse. Not only was he obviously a man for the ladies, not only would he never look at a man in that way, but – even if a miracle did happen, would Bodie really want to bed someone who used up his lovers the way Chauvelin did? No, whispered his common sense – Yes, screamed his overheated blood, aided by his memory of the beautiful – to Bodie – body now chastely covered by Percy’s own nightgown and the bed linen.
Chauvelin’s body was, if possible, even more attractive than his face - long lean legs, narrow hips and tight, firm arse, wide, pleasantly furred chest, and the whole nicely muscled for all its owner’s age, which looked to be close to Bodie’s. Another point in favour. The Major had never been fond of green boys barely old enough to shave, once he’d matured past that age himself.
And now this tangle-haired satyr, with his heavy-lidded aquamarine eyes and his mouth made for passion - was his patient. Lord, what a mess!...
The worst of it was that, as Bodie was forced to admit reluctantly to himself, Chauvelin’s chances of recovery were far from ideal. The man had clearly been on short commons for some time - there was far too little flesh on those lean bones to cope well with the enervating effect of a fever. Even the stomach was concave below those strongly curved ribs which gave such a false impression of sturdy bulk... the Major shook his head angrily at his pessimistic thoughts. Paul Chauvelin had a reputation for iron determination and a bloody-minded stubbornness that was almost the equal of Sir Percy’s. Surely that strength would pull him through!
Bodie had said as much to Percy earlier, and could only hope that it was an accurate assessment rather than the whistling in the dark that his fears labelled it:-
“If he wants to live, he will.”
“Then he will,” had been Percy’s immediate – and comforting - response. “He had some plan in mind when he took that ball for me, I’ll wager, and unless he lives, he won’t be able to carry it out. I’ll be fascinated to find out what his game is.”
* * *
“No... Papa, no... don’t hit me!... ‘m not – shan’t! - I hate you! - no!...”
Major Bodie glanced up from his battered copy of Wm Shakespeare: Collected Sonnets, then came to his feet and approached the bed, adding his lantern’s light to the warm glow of the paired candleholders set in the wall on either side of the bed behind the sleeper’s line of sight.
Putting his lantern down on the table he felt Chauvelin’s forehead and grunted softly. Warm – too warm. But then, wound fever was to be expected – the thing to do was to prevent it getting too great a hold. Quickly he placed the cooling poultices he had prepared in readiness, then bathed Chauvelin’s face and chest with cold well-water, freshly brought upstairs for the purpose and still holding the chill of deep underground.
Gradually Chauvelin fell quiet and became less restless. It was only when Bodie drew the covers up and stood back that he realised he had been murmuring comfort to the delirious man, and realised why. Until now Chauvelin had been speaking in Parisian French, the sharp, fast-talking twang of the city. But in this last bout of delirium his accent had changed, reverting to the rural drawl and tight vowels of the Vendée… the accent of Major Bodie’s mother. And instinctively Bodie had responded - in the same dialect.
So Chauvelin was originally from the Vendée then? The Major wondered idly which part, and how old the Frenchman had been when he’d left. Though it was clear that this scion of the bourgeoisie had been well-taught, and could switch to an accent as pure as any gentleman’s when he felt it necessary, his speech was usually undiluted Parisian – working-class Parisian, full of thieves’ cant and slang as was the fashion in these egalitarian days, carrying no hint of the country - so he must have been quite young when he came to the capital. Under that Vendée patois, Bodie realised suddenly, the voice had been that of a youngster – perhaps even a child.
Such a thing happened frequently in Bodie’s experience – delirium often seemed to return the sufferer to childhood. The Major’s jaw tightened as he recalled young soldiers calling for their mothers as they wasted away, burning with tropical fever in St Lucia... He’d been able to do little for the pestilential fevers that had ravaged the 5th Foot in the Caribbean, and the regiment had returned to its barracks in Ireland barely a shadow of its former self.
This patient was different, though, Bodie told himself firmly. This was not a pestilence or a tropical fever – this was wound fever, and was recoverable, as long as the patient received good care - and was sufficiently strong-willed to carry on fighting for life through the delirium the fever brought.
Which brought him back to Chauvelin. When and why had he come to Paris, Bodie wondered. What had been his profession, this fiery proponent of the new Republic who had once loved Marguerite Saint-Just… the League knew of the old triangle formed between Chauvelin and the Blakeneys, though they all had too much respect for their leader’s feelings – and too much reverence and liking for Lady Blakeney – to ever allude to it in the Blakeneys’ hearing.
It was full night now. When Major Bodie went to the window and drew the curtain back to take a breath of air the last traces of afterglow were just disappearing from the sky. The sharp peaks of the houses on the other side of the street were black silhouettes against the rapidly-deepening blue, and the occasional breathy coo from the pigeons being bred for the pot on the window ledge two houses along made a friendly accompaniment to the rumble of noise from the Rue de Sevigny, three floors down. They were not overlooked here – the houses opposite were not quite as high as their own building, and their gables turned blank brick faces to the windows of Bodie’s room. The Major was glad of that – it meant that he could safely leave the shutters open and and benefit from the cool night air.
The couple who lived on the ground floor of the old gaming salon were old friends of Mazzarini’s, and had promised to keep Bodie supplied with food and a basic laundry service, as long as he could afford to pay. Although the Bastonis knew the Englishman had a sick man in his care on the third floor – a man who would need watching - they had no desire to know any more than that, for which the Major was grateful. He shuddered to consider their reaction should they find out that the man Bodie was nursing, and guarding so carefully, was Citizen Chauvelin, once a high-ranking official of the Committee of General Security and latterly Robespierre’s right-hand man.
On the thought there came a querulous voice from the bed, “Marguerite... never...” followed by, “No... not the Vendée...” and then a sharp cry of anguish, “Hélène!” before the voice died away to disconnected muttering even as Bodie moved to soothe it. Now that had been a Parisian accent. The man’s mind was already hopping about like a flea on a hot plate, and that did not bode well for the night ahead - Chauvelin was hallucinating already.
Grimly Bodie prepared himself for busy hours to come.
As the short summer night crawled on and outside the curtained window Paris quieted into slumber, Chauvelin’s fever burned higher and his delirium worsened, requiring Bodie’s almost continuous care...
... and voice. It was not long – perhaps an hour, perhaps more - before Bodie realised that Chauvelin was responding to the sound of his voice. That he quietened if the Major spoke to him, and seemed to recognise his nurse’s soothing tones. Perhaps the accent had something to do with it – that unique dialect which also coloured Chauvelin’s delirious tones.
For as the fever deepened the man tossing and turning in the bed, muttering in the low, broken voice of delirium, was not the ruthless agent of the secret police known to the League. As the fever took him, Chauvelin’s mind turned back through the years, becoming once again a youngster called ‘Valentin’... Often he was barely out of childhood, sometimes he was a youth, and only very occasionally was his speech that of an adult.
The boy thus revealed was angry and stubborn, hostile and bloody-minded, frequently miserable and in pain, and always alone... And Bodie found that the broken fragments of Chauvelin’s past were coming together in a picture which he really did not want to understand. Almost, he wished that his patient’s ramblings made no sense at all - they did not make pretty hearing.
What kind of father could do that to his son? he wondered, bathing Chauvelin’s overheated skin yet again and murmuring comfort as the obdurate boy inside the fevered body stubbornly refused to cry out, fighting his pain and delirium with a desperate courage that aroused Bodie’s compassion - even as the wandering, garbled words aroused the Major’s anger against any parent who could treat his child like this.
Yes, Bodie had been beaten when he was a boy – usually richly deserved, too. But his father and his tutors had never – ever – inflicted the kind of brutal treatment which young Valentin had endured... starvation. Confinement. Beatings that were more like the brutal floggings inflicted on criminals than the few blows with a cane which Bodie recalled from his own childhood – and also unlike Master William Bodie’s punishments, which had occurred in decent privacy as something which concerned only his father or his tutor and himself, the young Valentin had frequently been disciplined in public, in front of his father’s workers in the commune vineyard at Boissière. That was positively medieval, as far as Bodie was concerned.
He could only imagine the devastating effect that such public humiliation would have on a sensitive boy... no wonder that Valentin was so bitter, and so full of anger and hatred! And always, there had been casual blows and public contempt... had all the brutality and abuse been a deliberate policy, intended to break an obstinate, self-willed boy’s spirit – in which it had failed totally, Bodie noted with fierce satisfaction - or had it been inflicted simply because his father enjoyed it?
And there was more, Major Bodie was sure. What of this Curé, the priest of the boy’s small community of Boissière-sur-Evre? Bodie guessed that young Valentin had been sent to the local priest for his education, for he heard no word of a tutor but much of lessons. That too was frightening, for there was no emotion in Valentin’s voice when he spoke of the priest – none at all. Those level, over-controlled tones... the Major had heard something like it before, though never in a child’s voice. Those were the inflections of battle-weary soldiers who had seen too much of war, men who could never escape the dreadful sights which troubled them... what could possibly haunt a child in such a way?
No. Bodie really did not want to think about that. And as Chauvelin’s fever burned on he was thankful to find himself far too busy to consider such abstract matters. Chauvelin was weakening – if Bodie did not break the fever by sunrise, the man would die.
Refusing to panic, Bodie continued to use his infusion of willow bark and cinquefoil, resisting the temptation to increase the dose. It was calming Chauvelin, even if the fever was proving resistant – so it was working in part, at least. The muttering had stopped, and now the restless, fevered movements were slowing.
Eventually, just as the sky began to pale into the grey light of pre-dawn, the wounded man gave a long sigh and was still. With a muttered imprecation Bodie leaned over the bed, lifting his lantern and dreading what he might see… then drew a long, relieved breath of his own and let it go with an explosive whuff! of released tension.
Chauvelin was sleeping quietly, the sweat moist on a forehead which was – miracle of miracles – cool to the touch. The fever had broken.