Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [113]
I take a deep breath, and try once more to play the passacaille without mangling it. One note, just one note. That’s all I need. But it’s hard tonight. So hard that I stop playing. And look up at the sky instead. It’s black. No moon. No stars.
Hello, darkness, my old friend.
56
It’s late, I think. Past noon on Monday. Maybe one or two o’clock. I’ve slept for a long time. It’s quiet in the apartment. Dad and Lili must be out.
I open my eyes, stare at the gray light coming in through my bedroom window, then close them again as the sadness slams into me—no stalking, no circling, just a full-on attack. I stumble out of bed and scrabble through my bag for my pills.
But they’re not there. Panic shoots through me. I turn around in circles in the middle of the room until I see them. Right where I left them. On my night table. On top of the diary.
I swallow four, lie back down on my bed, and will myself to fall asleep again. But I can’t. All I can think of is Virgil. How could I have been so wrong about him? I wish I’d never met him. Wish we’d never had those phone calls. Wish my heart didn’t feel like it was shattering inside of me.
The Qwells always take a little while to kick in. I grab the diary and start reading, desperate for a distraction.
27 May 1795
I will never forget July 14, and not because it’s Bastille Day. July 14, 1793, was my last day in service to the royal family. I’d been told I was no longer needed. The king was dead, guillotined in January of the new year. Louis-Charles was in the hands of a man named Antoine Simon. A man selected by the Assembly. A man of the people. A good Republican. A stupid, vicious drunkard.
I was trying to say goodbye to the queen. Majesty, I said to her. Majesty, please.
But she did not hear me. She heard only him, her child, crying for days on end from his new room, on the floor beneath hers. She would not speak. She would not eat. She would only stare at the wall and rock.
You must be strong, Madame Elizabeth told her. You must endure. God, too, heard his son’s cries as he lay upon the cross.
Speak not to me of God, the queen said.
There was a sound like a slap—sharp and sudden—a howl of pain, more weeping. The queen rose. She stumbled across the room and picked up a case. There was a guitar inside it. It was the king’s. I had often played it for Louis-Charles.
Take it. Play it for him, the queen said, holding it out to me.
The guard was watching us.
But Majesty, no one is allowed to see him, I said.
Open it. Play it, she said. You turn the key once to unlock it.
But as she said once, she held up three fingers. In such a way that the guard could not see her.
I cannot, I said.
She started to cry. Please, she sobbed. Play for him. Keep his poor heart merry. Then she sank to the floor, wrapped her arms around her knees, and keened.
Take it! the guard barked. Take it and stop her noise!
He was a decent man, a father himself, and wished to be kind, but he was afraid. I could see it in his eyes. We were all afraid. We had seen the tumbrels.
I did as he bade me. Outside of her room, he opened the case. He cut the guitar’s strings with a knife and felt around inside it. Then he ripped out the case’s lining, checking for ciphers. Only when he was satisfied the queen had hidden nothing in it could I take it.
Later, in my room, I found what she meant me to find. I turned the key three times because she held up three fingers. And I found a hidden compartment. In it was a picture of Louis-Charles—a miniature painted on ivory, and a sack of coins. Twenty gold Louis. She’d known those things were in there. Looking at them, I felt a fury inside me.
Why had she given it to me, damn her? What was I to do with them? I was not a marquis with an army, I was but one small and powerless person.
But the fury soon ebbed and sadness took its place, for I saw how desperate she must’ve been to entrust me with her son’s life. Me, of all people.