Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [103]
Jean spat. Go, boy, he snarled, shoving me so hard I went sprawling onto the cobbles. Go back to your master. Tell him our work goes well.
Wild with fear, barely hearing him, I scrambled to my feet and ran off. The streets I stumbled down were dark and so were the houses along them. I knocked on doors, hoping someone would let me in, for I did not know if I could make my legs carry me all the way to the Palais. No one answered. The decent people of Paris had hidden themselves behind closed doors as decent people always do. Massacres could not happen if it were not for decent people.
I stayed in the shadows as I ran, ducked into alleys whenever I heard voices or footsteps. When I arrived at the Palais, I staggered upstairs and collapsed on my bed. A minute later, Nicolas came to fetch me.
Tell me, Orléans said as I walked into his bedchamber.
So I did. In a dull, hollow voice, I told him all I had seen. The princess’s head. The mob at the Temple. And at La Force.
There were so many bodies, I said. Bodies with their arms and legs hacked off. Some with their heads gone. Men’s bodies. Women’s bodies. One was a boy’s. He couldn’t have been more than twelve.
Orléans was readying himself to go out, dressing in his mirror. He chose not his usual rich attire but plainer things. He put on a gray coat and a simple felt hat and looked a different man entirely. A man I might pass in any Paris street. A man who could go amongst the people unnoticed. The hat’s brim threw a shadow across his face, but I could still see his eyes in the mirror, glinting in the candlelight, darker than midnight.
And suddenly, I could not breathe.
I had seen this same man before. On another terrible night, the night Versailles fell. I remembered one who went among the crowd then, his hat pulled low on his brow, handing out gold coins, spreading devilry and murder. His eyes, too, had been darker than midnight.
Orléans turned to me. Ah, sparrow, he said. What times we live in.
I nodded, unable to speak.
I believe that Paris has gone mad.
Yes, I whispered. I believe it has.
He came close, cocked his head. You look unwell, he said. He poured a glass of brandy and handed it to me. Drink it, he said. It will do you good.
As soon as the door closed behind him, my legs began to shake. The glass fell from my hand and smashed against the marble. For I knew then who’d unleashed hell upon us.
Why? I whispered, in the stillness of the room. Why?
As if in answer, voices pressed in upon me. Voices in my head. I pressed my hands to my ears, but could not silence them.
Jean the murderer’s—Go back to your master. Tell him the work goes well.
My grandmother’s—One day you’ll go walking with the devil, my girl.
Louis-Charles’—Mama does not like him. She says he plays the rebel but wishes to be king.
And his, Orléans’—The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
All along, he had lied to me. He had never wanted to help the king. The king was his enemy, and the king’s enemy—the revolutionaries—were his friends. His gold had paid for their marches and their riots. His gold had paid for the things I’d seen tonight.
I drove the heels of my hands against my head, wanting to drive the knowledge from my brain. Why? I shrieked in the silence of his room. Why, damn you, why?
A violent rage took hold of me. I grabbed a candlestick and threw it at the wall. I smashed a vase. Swept bottles and brushes off a table.
Suddenly, I felt hands upon me, heard a voice yelling, Stop it! Stop, I tell you!
It was Nicolas. I shook him off and kept at it—rending Orleans’ clothing, chucking handfuls of his jewels—until the old man slapped me across my face.
What is it? What has happened? he asked me.
It is him, Orléans, I said. He is the one behind the massacres. He has paid for them.
Hold your tongue, he said. You speak of things you do not understand.
All this time, I believed I was helping him to help the king, I said. That is what he told me—that he wished to help the king.
Nicolas laughed. Believed, child? Or merely wished