Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [138]
“I must be quick,” he says. “I cannot be seen here.” He has a sack slung over his shoulder. He opens it, lifts out a bundle wrapped in newspaper and hands it to me. I open it. There are fireworks inside. Paper rockets. And wooden shafts.
I look from the rockets to him and then realize that he thinks I’m her—Alex.
“Two dozen. As agreed. I’ll want better payment next time,” he hisses at me. “It’s getting harder, you know. Harder to get black powder. Saltpeter, too. I have to pay a man to steal it from the military stores.” His eyes travel to the wound on my forehead. “You were injured a few nights ago, no? That’s what the papers say. Be careful. You are worth far more to me alive than dead. Bring me more jewels—good ones. And a handful of gold Louis. I have my eye on a very fine house. It belonged to a marquis.”
We hear footsteps approaching. “I’ve tarried too long,” Fauvel says. “I must go.”
As he finishes speaking, a newsboy walks by. He calls out the headlines and shouts that Bonaparte has upped the bounty on the Green Man to three hundred francs, dead or alive.
Fauvel’s eyes narrow. “Did I say a handful of gold Louis?” he says. “Make that a sackful.”
“Who is the Green Man? Who is the Green Man?” the newsboy shouts as he passes us. The words sound like a taunt.
“Who is the Green Man? Who is the Green Man?” The echo carries down the long arcade.
Fauvel chuckles. He raises his hand in the darkness and points. At me.
72
“Please, Amadé. Just for a night or two.”
“No.”
I’m sitting in his doorway. It’s late. I’m cold. I’ve been waiting here for hours. He’s just come home. He’s wearing a red ribbon around his neck and smells of wine.
“I’ll be quiet. I won’t break anything. I swear,” I tell him.
“Move.”
I get to my feet but I don’t get out of the way. “I have food. Lots of it. Enough for both of us,” I tell him. I open my bag and pull out a salami, a hunk of cheese, and a loaf of bread. I’ve already wolfed a turkey leg and a basket of strawberries. I bought the food with the coin one of the drunk guys dropped down my pants.
He pushes me aside. Puts his key in the lock.
“I’ll give you the salami. The whole thing,” I say.
“I don’t want it.”
The key turns. The door opens. I reach in my bag and dig around.
I offer him gum, a pen, my flashlight. I have to get inside. I have to sit by a fire.
“I don’t want anything of yours. I just want you to leave,” he says, going inside.
“I’m so cold,” I tell him. “I’m going to die if I don’t get warm.”
He starts to close the door. And then my hand, still in my bag, closes around my iPod.
“Wait!” I say, holding it out to him. “I’ll give you this. It’s a music box. Just like the one from the catacombs. Remember?”
His eyes widen. He reaches for it but I hold it away from him.
“All right, then,” he says, opening the door. “You can stay. But if you start shouting and throwing things again, you’re out for good.”
“Thank you,” I tell him. “You won’t even know I’m here. I swear.”
I give him the iPod, put the food on the table, then stash my bag and Fauvel’s bundle under the bed. I ask if I can borrow a shirt, then I get out of my wet clothes and hang them over the back of a chair to dry. I make a sandwich and a fire and then I sit down to eat. I don’t think I’ve ever been so profoundly grateful for anything in my life as I am for the warmth of the fire and the sandwich.
“Eat something,” I say to Amadé through a mouthful of food.
But he doesn’t want to eat. He’s messing with the iPod. Finally he hands it to me and says, “How do I wind this? Where is the key?”
“There’s no key,” I tell him. “Here, look.…” I show him what to press to turn it on. “You’ll need earbuds, too,” I say, getting up to pull a pair out of my jacket pocket. “Here you go. That’s the index; see it? What do you want to hear?”
My iPod is chockful. It’s a virtual history book of music because of Nathan and all his assignments. Amadé watches as I scroll from the As to the Bs.
“Beethoven?” he says. “The pianist? The one from Vienna?”
“Yep.”
“I’ve heard good things about him.