Reign of Fear: Story of French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars (Cantiniére Tales) (5 page)

Adam laughed, nervous as Colbert agreed with Guillemin, even in some small way. ‘He could not forge his own signature, little less…’

Colbert spat shifting his considerable weight. ‘He has, though. He is in deep debt; he has done something in the print, though I cannot prove the deed, yet it reflects poorly on all of us. No matter what happens to France, my name cannot be connected to a common criminal, by God. Imagine, if on our doorsteps we will start seeing hoodlums and runaway soldiers, all wishing to buy new name or passes to escape the service! Imagine them in the shop, if you will! Standing there in rags, while a baron comes in, and their eyes meet! Might as well hang myself.’

I quaffed, despite myself, at the thought and so did Gilbert, but we went quiet as a mouse as Madame Fourier, her saggy cheeks trembling, was stretching like a fat cat in a delicate bodice of satin. She rolled her eyes, bored.
‘Calm, calm. Of course, you cannot have this. You must act. And as for the fanciful things he thinks will happen? Matters will change indeed, but not like the fool raved. In a few days, our fine king will meet with all the sad estates, and our excellent life will improve. I find your Guillemin boring as a pious priest in a pulpit, this threatening and promise of violence only leads to heavy handed mercenaries coming to Paris, and those men will have their bayonets teach the rabble proper way of conducting the business of respecting one’s monarchs, if the rabble does not heed otherwise.’ Colbert, his fat jowls and powdered wig bent down in deep thought, was nodding, whether in agreement of disagreement, we knew not.

Adam grinned though. ‘Guillemin is like an angry, spoiled child, which he was, by the way, thanks to mother.
Even if he never makes mastership, and has to work and slave for me, eventually, he should think about his fine family. He should look after that delicious wife of his, Henriette…’ Madame Fourier stopped him quickly, and nodded at our general direction. They noticed us, and went quiet, apparently trying to decide what we heard.

‘Jeanette? Gilbert?’ Colbert asked, gesturing like a lord for us to step forward, wiping sweat. ‘Have some most brilliant wine, though just a bit.’ We walked up to the garden, enjoying the smell of herbs and trampled roses, and took pewter mugs of delicious red wine from Colbert. They were eyeing me curiously, and wondered what I had understood. So I humored them.

‘Why,’ I asked, after having drunk the wine, savoring the taste, ‘is father not going to make a master? For this forgery? What is that?’

Gilbert snickered at my side, and answered for them. ‘He will not make a master because my father is far better at the trade. That is why Guillemin is fomenting all this trouble. Criminals need false documents, and he is…’ Adam got up, grunted in rare agreement, and led Gilbert off, smiling at me in a patr
onizing manner. I hated him, in fact, I hated both of them right then, and could not stand Gilbert for taking a side other than mine.

Madame pulled me gently next to her, and I sulked, eyeing Colbert with hostility. ‘It is not fair, you know. Have you told him? And the police, they…’

Colbert nodded, tired of the drama. ‘It is God’s will. Not all are as talented as Adam and I, and that is the way our lord intended things to be. Guillemin knows. You heard us. Possibly, he could work here, still, if the nefarious police do not find proper evidence. If they do, I will throw him out as he deserves. I have my fine reputation to think about, and the untarnished fame of my business. However, I am putting Adam forth as my preferred candidate for the mastership, when I retire, which is soon, perhaps. He needs to create his delicate proof of mastership, but he will, he is good. He has nearly finished it, in fact, and I think it’s brilliant, the book he has bound and devised. I am sorry, but fair it is indeed. Adam has the aptitude for it. You should not complain if you do not work hard enough, no? And if he indeed broke the law? He has to go.‘

‘He has been here longer, master,’ I told him sadly, and he nodded, expecting my reaction.

‘I’m sorry, Jeanette, I know this will depress and suck some of that happiness we all enjoy from you. He has, and so he should have paid more attention. Much more. I will take care of you if things go as I fear they will,’ he told me, grudgingly, but there was something strange in his voice, and a note of nervousness and regret in the way his hands thrummed his knee breeches.

‘How could they go even
worse?’ I asked, alarmed.

Madame Fourier nodded sagely, her thin lips pursed and pulled my face gently near hers. Her breath stank of wine and garlic and I got dizzy, contemplating on rushing away. ‘Your father, child, might go to a dark jail. Moreover, your beautiful mother is not eating enough. She has no coin to buy new bread for all of you, nor even half decent vegetables, and your father, he is spending half of what he earns in the tavern, gambling like an idiot, as is that Claude Antin, and drinking wine, in excess. He spends far more than most fools, they say more than he earns, and likely more than he has made from forgery. Your
mother will either starve and get sick, and we do not want that, or you eat but cannot pay the rent. This will not do, for someone has to pay something for everything. Smile, Jeanette, for your great uncle will take care of you, and you will see it is better than starving.’

I was eyeing them incredulously as I pulled off her. Was such a thing possible? ‘What is better than…
’

Colbert smiled. ‘Your mother will provide. You, when you grow up? Yes, perhaps, though it gives me no joy to think about it, as I have no children of my own, and have enjoyed the wild adventures you and Gilbert have blessed our evening talk with. Now, you have a mother, you are growing up and so things are not hopeless, not at all, by God. Madame Fourier might have errands for her, we will see. Now, go and play, Jeanette. You will be an adult one-day, and face the harsher world. Today, no need.’ I eyed Madame Fourier suspiciously and saw she had a complacent look on her old pinched face and I did not want mother or myself to work for her, whatever it was she did.

I sat at the stairs for an hour, and then got up quickly as Florian knocked on the door to the sodden street. I opened it and saw his gangly body there, wet from light rain. ‘You never came. I waited and had to lie...’

I sobbed and he stepped in and hugged me,
an astonished look on his face, for we were rarely unhappy. ‘What is it? What has happened?’

I looked up to his concerned face. ‘We have trouble
. Father is suspected of some stupid crime, and mother is starving as we have not enough coin.’

He shook in surprise, unused to such trouble. His father’s business was doing exceedingly well, and I envied him that for a second. He looked around, thinking about it, and then, slumping in resignation he whispered to me. ‘I can probably steal some sous, I think, maybe. Father uses our savings to buy expensive meat and wine, which he gorges by himself, and he also gambles a great deal, so if some more is missing, mother will not think I did it.’

‘Thank you, but we have to… I don’t know.’ I thought about it, knew it was a bad, horribly bad idea, but I took a deep, determined breath, unable to resist the temptation. I had to see what father was doing. ‘Go home, I have to do something. Is your father in the tavern now?’

‘No toppling the people on to the sewers?’ he asked, disappointed. ‘No, he is not at the tavern. Claude is at some foolish guild meeting where they sample sweets and praise each other
shamelessly while getting drunk on sugar and wine.’

‘No toppling the
poor fools today, no,’ I told him sadly, for I had looked forward to it and followed him outside, where the rain was no longer light and coming down steadily and resolutely. I waved at him, forgot him in a second and then I traced my route through puddles and trash towards a tavern I had once seen father entering. I hesitated outside its dirty stone facade, and then I quickly scuttled in through the rotten doors, dodging a meaty bouncer and a communicative drunk having an argument.

The tavern was seedy. We had often passed it, mocking the variety of drunks exiting it, but never had I thought of going in myself. After a dark and dank entry hall, I saw the main room. Dirty stalls, which were seeping with moist mold, hemmed in the trash of Paris and mocking laughter and loud moans were wafting through dark doors leading to holes I could not see. Men and women walked in and out of them, in various states of dress, and I sneaked forward, wet to the bone. The main room was smoky, the humid air making it hard to breathe, and many boisterous discussions inside the room created incredible, unrealistic echoes. To this day, I remember the faces, toothless and drunk as they regarded me. Someone tried to grab me with a palsied hand, and I
instinctively screamed and ran, slipping on the ale sodden straw.

Then I saw father.

Guillemin was seated next to a table full of bottles, and surrounded by drunken, dangerous people. He was leaning forward in agitation and stress, throwing yellowed dice, his other hand grasping a dark green wine bottle, sloshing the liquid inside as he retired to witness the results. The fickle dice rolled, then stopped. I noticed a woman seated next to him, a blonde girl with a dirty face who cursed profusely, clapping father’s back to console him. The crowd shrieked, or groaned, and father put his face in his palms, fucked by Fortuna, it seems. ‘Ten sous!’ yelled a man I recognized as a mason from a nearby business. ‘Ten sous, you ass rutted fake! You have it?’

Guillemin was obviously miserable, but tried to look quarrelsome in front of the raucous mason. ‘I will have it tomorrow.’

‘Today!’ the mason said forcefully, and the faked anger faded, as he looked down, not able to defend himself.

‘I will do some work on the side, and have even…’

‘Fine! Tomorrow you pay,’ the man agreed mercifully, hefting a dirty finger at father, who nodded, dejected and looking sick.

A small, ill-kempt man next to the mason grinned.
‘The work on the side? I hear the bastard of a police is looking for you. Perhaps your work is shoddy and few will have use of your deplorable skills?’

‘I am going to be a master in the Paris Book Guild. My skills…’ father started uncertainly, but they laughed in derision.

The mason tipped his head. ‘On the other hand, I am feeling lucky. You care to roll again? All or nothing?’ The woman was whispering in father’s ear, Guillemin paled as men around him edged him on to his doom. He was drunk, very drunk, so drunk he could not think straight, his pride hurt, desperation demanding he try to fix the terrible situation and it was all up to a simple roll of the dice, and luck owed him, after all. I edged closer as he grasped the stained dice. He was about to throw, when I reached forward, and grasped his hand. I will always remember his moist eyes, his shamed face. He looked surprised to the bone, shaking in anger and desire, knowing he should get up, pick me up and leave, but unable to. His jaw opened, and closed, as men around him mocked him. ‘Father, please. They say mother has not eaten and you just gave them a bread’s worth of…’ I started. The mason was mimicking a womanly saunter around the table, and father licked his dry lips. He got up, threw the dice, the sudden action pushing me down, and by the look on his face, I saw he had lost. He trembled, and even the woman got up and walked off. The mason did not even cheer, but shrugged, cracking his knuckles.

‘Tomorrow, and the day after, all you owe, and let the wife choose who starves!’ Said the mason, drunk and vicious, his dirty face and rotten teeth making me shiver with fear. Yet, something snapped in me. I feared Gilbert’s moods, was cautious in the streets, and usually avoided trouble. However, this man was abominable, foul to the bone, and I saw him as the epitome of all the things suddenly wrong in our lives. He insulted us, threatened us with starvation and shame and I could not help myself. I got up, took a bottle from the table, and threw it with all the force I could muster at the mason. He howled as his jaw was bloodied, a tooth missing after the glass shattered with a jingle on the floor. He turned in shock, pushed past equally shocked father, and kicked the rickety table over. He was spitting blood in gouts as he grasped me. ‘You little bitch, eh? Here, let me teach you a lesson.’

He grabbed my braid and pulled me down on the filthy floor, and I cried, as he used his belt to beat my back and rear red and raw. Father stood there like a simpleton, his eyes smoldering with anger, then shame and regret. He did nothing but look away, finishing the drink. The mason glanced at him, spat at his feet, and held me down fiercely, and blood was trickling down my back as the belt came down again. The animals looking on smiled and edged the mason on, but to my surprise, Florian ran up, shrieking, holding a piece of wood, afraid but somehow mad enough to charge the horrible man. He swung it weakly at the mason, whose bloodshot eyes promised swift pain to the boy, but we fought, I clawed at the man, Florian tried to whack him again but yelped as the mason grasped him. We would suffer both.

Then a man stepped up.

He was a tall soldier, though not of the French Guard, but a member of some regular army unit, dressed in faded white and green. A corporal by his stripes, he punched the mason so hard the man yelped, fell down, and lay there, breathing shallowly, his eyes unfocused and I hoped he was dead, for then we would not have to pay him. The soldier helped me up gently, eyeing the silent mob around him, his hand on a sheathed bayonet. He had an olive skin and green eyes, much like mine, and a face with very long moustaches. A fairly young man, he lifted me effortlessly, grunted at Florian to follow, and pushed through the sulking crowd, growling warnings. Outside, he checked me out, grunting with a voice I took to mean I would be all right. I had blood on my back from a shallow wound, but I swooned from all the exertion and Florian grabbed me, holding me as we walked. The soldier helped us home, carrying me the last hundred yards. He said nothing, he smelled of pipe tobacco, and I felt safe. He set me down on the doorway, tousled my hair, and waved his hand in regret as he grinned at us. ‘You both need to know when you are overmatched, but a brave play. I am sorry for your troubles.’ He left with an encouraging smile, whistling and I turned to Florian.