The Silver Blade (31 page)
‘Go to him.’
Sido sat beside him. He looked through her and said to the air, ‘Sido.’
‘I am here.’
‘He can’t hear you,’ said Anis, ‘and he can’t see you.
He is broken by the knowledge of who he believes his father to be. I would never have had him learn of it. It is this knowledge that makes him think you will love him no more.’
‘That is not so. Why can’t I tell him? Yann …’
‘Come.’
‘No, wait. I must tell him …’
She felt Anis’s hand in hers and once more they were travelling, this time out of the city over tree tops to where, in a woodland clearing, a young man stood laughing among a group of gypsies. Sido wondered if this too were Yann, for he looked so like him.
‘This is Manouche,’ said Anis. ‘This is the man I love. He is Yann’s spirit father.’
Then Sido saw soldiers coming through the trees, saw bright flashes from their muskets.
‘Warn them,’ Sido shouted. ‘Why don’t they run? We must help them!’
‘This is the past. What has been done is done. No tomorrows can unpick history.’
The guns fired again. The acrid smoke cleared and all was quiet, all were dead.
Once more Anis took Sido’s hand and they rose higher to see scorched earth in the clearing below them. In the burned trees hung the bodies of the gypsies, like broken birds of paradise.
In the room of bone once more, Sido longed to hold fast to Anis so that she might never leave her. She felt Anis’s fingers, velvet soft, touch her face as she whispered, as if in prayer:
‘That is the shell of the shells he gave thee.
You are blessed, he loves thee much.
Don’t be afraid, stand up.
He is within you as I am beside you,
You are one with us.
Yann is Manouche’s ghost child. Don’t lose faith.’
And she kissed her in the middle of her forehead and was gone.
The sleep that followed was deep and peaceful. Sido woke to find an angel in her room; his golden hair, his amber eyes so luminous that she wondered if she were still dreaming. She sat up knowing, as if Anis were whispering to her, that this was no angel. This was death’s seducer.
Anselm, for once, was at a loss, for never before had he seen a creature more beautiful than himself.
‘My master wants to know if you will give him the shell.’ His voice was almost a whisper.
‘No,’ said Sido.
‘My master says he will have it from you whether you are dead or alive.’
The memory of Anis’s words gave her courage. ‘Leave me be and tell your master my answer is still no.’
Anselm couldn’t understand why he felt no anger. Usually by now such obstinancy would have been enough to rouse the red dragon in him, but looking into Sido’s blue eyes he felt almost at peace, the voices in his head quietened, the flame beneath the cauldron of his fury spent.
He tried again, hoping to ignite something in himself that would make it possible to take hold of her and pull the shell from her neck. He went closer. It would be so easy, and then Kalliovski would embrace him as his son.
Sido stood up. For a moment he wasn’t quite sure what had happened, for she began to fade away in front of his eyes. All he could see was a blinding light coming from the shell and it felt like the sun burning him.
Try as he might, he could get no closer and the light was so strong. He knew he was defeated and turning, he ran like the devil’s own wind from the room. Outside, Milkeye watched him go and knew he wouldn’t be returning.
Kalliovski, looking out of his window on to his artificial garden, was told of Anselm’s failure.
‘A pity. Sido leaves me no alternative,’ he said.
Behind him stood the Seven Sisters and, from one glass eye of each, a tear rolled without permission down their dead skin faces.
‘So,’ said Kalliovski, ‘there will be another to keep us company.’
He rose and, hauling on Balthazar’s heavy chain, said to him, ‘You may have the first and the last taste of her innocent beauty, that is my gift to you.’
At Sido’s chamber, Kalliovski removed his poppy-red glove. From his skeleton finger tips, skeins of black threads hungrily searched out the lock in the iron door. At a signal from his master, Milkeye opened the leather case containing Remon Quint’s key. The dark threads seemed to devour it as they pushed it into the lock. The door opened. Kalliovski freed Balthazar from his spiked collar and let the ravenous hound in, swiftly closing the door behind him. Sido’s scream filled the air. As he walked away, his red-heeled boots clicking on the stone, he heard the howl of a hungry dog.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘
W
hat is your name?’ The prison governor looked down the list.
W
hat is your name?’ The prison governor looked down the list.
‘Yann Margoza.’
He had been caught as he was leaving the cafe. He had no will to fight. In a strange way he was relieved that at last it was over. Death finally had hold of him.
‘Well, now, isn’t that interesting? And they tell me you’re the Silver Blade. Are you?’
‘There is no such person,’ said Yann. ‘It’s a myth.’
‘I agree. I wouldn’t have believed it unless I’d been told,’ said the governor, leaning back in the armchair. ‘I always imagined the Silver Blade to be older and to be an Englishman.’
Yann stayed silent. He didn’t feel that anything he had to say would make the situation any better.
The prisoner governor laughed. ‘There I was, fishing for trout, when I went and caught myself the biggest pike in the river.’
He turned to the theatre manager. ‘You have never heard of the Silver Blade either?’
Citizen Aulard shook his head, hoping to goodness Iago would keep quiet. Lord knows what Tetu had taught him to say.
‘I would make the most of all that head-shaking while you still have one,’ the governor said, pen in hand.
Yann concentrated hard on him; the pain was like burning rods pushing through his eyes. He knew his powers were nearly too weak to catch the governer’s mind, full as it was with confused indictments.
The governor signed the paper before him and called for a turnkey. ‘This one is to be taken to the Luxembourg prison.’
Citizen Aulard was completely baffled by what had just happened. The Luxembourg meant a chance of survival, whereas to remain at the Conciergerie was certain death. He was about to say something when the parrot squawked, ‘
Vive la Nation!
’
Vive la Nation!
’
‘That’s a very talented bird you have there,’ said the prison governor, indicating to the turnkey to take Citizen Aulard away.
He returned to the matter in hand. ‘As for you, Citizen Margoza, and you, Citizen Didier, you two are under arrest on the serious charge of being counter-revolutionaries and working against this great and glorious Republic. Both of you will be sent for trial.’ He nodded to the guard. ‘Take them away.’
They walked along the dimly lit corridor, passing rows of cells where the cries of anguished men could be heard.
In the last glimpse that Yann had of the outside world, the skies opened and rain splashed upon the cobbles, puffs of dust rising with the water. Citizen Aulard was standing in a wagon, soaking wet, looking more like a martyred saint than ever. Iago, on the other hand, his head held high, looked like a hero of the cause.
Yann was separated from Didier and escorted by three guards into a small cubicle, the floor of which was covered in hair. The barber, obviously drunk, stood swaying, a filthy leather apron tied round his waist. Yann struggled as he was pushed down in the chair, knowing what was to come.
‘Cut it off,’ said his guard.
‘Will all the ladies be weeping?’ the barber enquired, as he went to work.
Still Yann said nothing as the scissors cut irregular chunks off his hair. Chop, chop, chop. A foretaste of the blade to come.
‘Makes it easier,’ said the barber. He took a swig of wine from the bottle next to his instruments on the table. ‘As I was saying, it makes it easier for the blade of the guillotine to cut through the flesh and bone.’
Yann was locked in a small cell containing a bed and a pail, which smelled as if it hadn’t been emptied since the last occupant left.
Thunder started to rumble and lightning illuminated his cell. Lying on the hard wooden bed, he thought, tonight is my last night on earth, tomorrow my life will be over and I care little.
Yet he felt uneasy, not about his own death, no … and in one flash of lightning it came to him. What if the body found in a Hampstead pond wasn’t Sido’s? Where was she? He sat upright. It was as if Sido were with him, beside him, giving him the answer. He was a fool not to have thought of it before, a dunce, a numbskull! And now he was caught, locked away in one of the most notorious prisons in France.
If she were alive, the only man who would have taken her was Count Kalliovski.
A
t about three in the morning, the grille in the iron door to Yann’s cell slid open. He heard a guard ask, ‘Is this the one?’ Then, ‘How do you want to do it?’
t about three in the morning, the grille in the iron door to Yann’s cell slid open. He heard a guard ask, ‘Is this the one?’ Then, ‘How do you want to do it?’
The door opened and Yann tried to see the threads of light. If he could make them work again he could escape. He looked from one prison guard to the other, but could only read their thoughts, a jumble which gave him no clues. Two more burst into the cell, pinning him down while his mouth was wrenched open and foul-tasting liquid was poured down his throat. Yann’s eyes felt heavy and almost immediately his limbs seemed to fill with lead, his vision dissolved like ink in water, and he heard a crash, a curse, and smelled what must have been the spilled contents of the pail. The stench, as good as smelling salts, revived him, before more liquid was forced down his throat. He gagged. Lightning lit up the cell, and Milkeye’s face loomed monster large over him, then all went black.
Y
ann woke. His mouth was dry, his head hurt, his face was cut and bruised. He was lying on a damp stone floor in a vaulted chamber, the walls lined with human bones. It took a moment for the room to stop spinning, for him to find his feet. Now he was wide awake and, like a cat sensing danger, he took in his surroundings, looking for a way out. At one end of the chamber there was a door, while at the other side were two smaller doors under a wooden gantry. He could smell a familiar mustiness, which no amount of incense could hide. He knew he was under the city. Suddenly the chamber became ice cold.
ann woke. His mouth was dry, his head hurt, his face was cut and bruised. He was lying on a damp stone floor in a vaulted chamber, the walls lined with human bones. It took a moment for the room to stop spinning, for him to find his feet. Now he was wide awake and, like a cat sensing danger, he took in his surroundings, looking for a way out. At one end of the chamber there was a door, while at the other side were two smaller doors under a wooden gantry. He could smell a familiar mustiness, which no amount of incense could hide. He knew he was under the city. Suddenly the chamber became ice cold.
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