The Red Necklace (33 page)

It had taken Yann hours to get anywhere. He had made it as far as Kalliovski’s apartment, to be told he had not returned. He went back to the Pont Neuf, but here, just as earlier, the press of people made progress almost impossible. Yann felt time slipping through his fingers like sand. Every now and then news would reach his ears of what was happening in the prisons, each report more horrific than the last.

These snippets of conversation made Yann more and more desperate. He climbed up onto the parapet of the bridge to get a better view of how far the masses stretched. On the opposite bank he could see the crowd divided. One half was setting off toward the Champ de Mars, the other making its way toward St. Germain and L’Abbaye.

Yann stood looking over the crowd, his mind whirling, the pain in his shoulder sharp and jagged. He cursed the fact that he had failed to persuade Sido to leave while there was still a chance.

Didier was now able to see Yann standing there in his sky-blue coat like a sailor looking out over an awesome sea of people. What was he searching for? Why was he drawing attention to himself? Didier wanted him to get down before he was pushed into the river.

“We’d best get off this bridge and make for the bridge of Notre Dame,” he shouted above the noise.

“Wait,” said Yann.

It wasn’t the first carriage he had seen that day, but the others had been abandoned, turned over, splintered, many set alight, making the movement of the masses even harder.

As it got closer Yann recognized it as Kalliovski’s shiny black coach with six fine white horses, the one in which he and Têtu and Topolain had traveled when they were taken to the Marquis de Villeduval’s château. He smiled to himself, for this meant only one thing: Kalliovski had had no time to return home after the meeting. Otherwise he would have chosen to travel in a humbler coach, for this one stood out like a beacon of wealth and privilege as it fought its way against the oncoming tide of people. He must already have been to the prison.

In that moment Yann was certain that Kalliovski had Sido in the coach with him.

“Didier,” he shouted, “look!”

Didier too had seen the coach, but unlike Yann the sight of it gave him no cause for joy. It was proof that they needed to get out fast.

“Get down, Yann. If he sees us, he’ll kill us. Let’s aim for the Palais Royal.”

"No,” said Yann. "Come on, follow me.”

Didier knew he had no choice. Yann was now walking along the parapet, making his way ever closer to the coach. Didier followed, plowing through the crowds until at last he had his hand firmly on the door and his huge face pressed up hard against the darkened glass of the window. He could see Kalliovski, with Balthazar snarling at his feet. An automaton was sitting in the middle, and Sido was hunched in the corner, her hands to her face.

Didier called to Yann, “They’re in there all right.”

“Get those horses,” came a cry from the crowd. “They should be pulling cannons, not carriages.”

A man leaped up and the coach driver did his best to push him off, shouting, “I have a member of the Revolutionary Council in here.”

For a fleeting moment sanity prevailed. The mob parted as the coach started to lurch forward again.

“Stop them!” shouted Yann as the terrified horses snorted, rearing up and showing the whites of their eyes. The coachman tried to calm them down and made one last frantic attempt to get free of the crowd.

“It’s an aristocrat trying to escape, a traitor to the cause!” yelled Didier at the top of his lungs.

The crowd needed to hear no more. That one seed of doubt worked its magic, and they swarmed upon the carriage and cut free the horses. Again the crowds parted, this time to make way for the horses to be taken like trophies won on the field of battle. The coachman slumped over on his seat, clutching a dagger that stuck out of his belly.

From where Yann was standing, he could see people pulling wildly at the doors, rocking them violently from side to side. The coach looked like a huge black beetle being swarmed over by ants. He could hear Kalliovski shouting that he was a friend of the people. Some men had now climbed on top of the roof and were about to put their axes through it, waiting to make firewood of the coach and its passengers.

He could see the automaton being flung out, ripped limb from waxen limb, as Balthazar snarled, savage and futile. Then he became aware that Sido had been dragged out, her arms pinned behind her and a knife at her throat. Didier was battling to get to her, but Yann knew that he wouldn’t be able to make it in time and for a moment he could hardly think straight. Then he realized he could see threads of light surrounding her. He felt his fingers tingle with excitement.

Yann pulled hard at the threads of light. The knife flew free of Sido’s throat and stabbed a man some way away. The victim screamed with pain and collapsed, while Sido’s captor looked on amazed. In that moment Yann lifted him off his feet and threw him so that he fell backward into a startled and unwelcoming mob.

Those who witnessed these events were convinced that there was an invisible force at play amongst them. They prayed it was on their side.

Sido felt as if she was in a nightmare. She hadn’t seen Yann, let alone heard him call out, “Run!”

It was too late. Another man came forward to grab hold of her. Sweat was beginning to roll down Yann’s forehead as he pulled once more at the threads of light. The man holding Sido, terrified by this invisible foe, let go of her and started to wield his axe around and around his head. There was a scream of anguish as it flew out of his grasp and landed in the red bonnet of one of his comrades. Before he could do anything, Yann lifted him as high as he could and dropped him onto the crowd below.

Didier now took his chance. He charged toward Sido like a bull and hauled her up on his shoulders.

“It’s all right,” he said urgently as she tried to resist him, “look,” and he pointed at Yann, standing on the parapet of the bridge. To her eyes he looked as an avenging angel might.

By now the crowd was in a fever of rage, like some grotesque creature that had started to feed upon its own flesh. Fighting had broken out, panic had set in. Yann leaped down, and following Didier they wove their way through the mob.

Yann caught a glimpse of Kalliovski, then he was engulfed by the crowd. His gravel-deep voice rose in one last cry.

“You will never get away from me! I will find you!” Then his words were drowned by the shouts of “Kill the traitors to the Revolution!”

When at last they were off the bridge Didier put Sido down. Yann took her hand and they pushed their way through the crowds.

“Where’re you taking her? She’s an aristo like him,” a voice screamed. The woman was an apparition of ghastliness, her teeth black, her hair wild, with the smell of the fish market. She screamed it out again.

“No,” shouted Yann, “no, you’re wrong. That bastard had snatched her from me. She’s my sweetheart.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He didn’t even turn around to see if they were being followed, and at last they broke free of the mob. Now they were running until all three were completely out of breath. Sido, gasping for air, pulled at Yann’s hand.

“I can’t go any farther.”

There were just forty-five minutes left to get to the meeting point.

They stopped and Didier, leaning his back against a wall, turned his head this way and that. In the distance they could just hear the faint sound of the crowds and of cannons being fired.

Yann, his heart pounding with excitement, could hardly believe what they had done. He laughed out loud and looked at Sido.

“Life is life!” he shouted.

Sido needed no one to tell her what that meant, she who only a few hours ago had narrowly missed death and had now escaped marriage to a man she detested. Instead, by some strange magic she could not understand, she was alive and free and with the person she had dreamed of in those dark hours in her prison cell. Oh yes, life was life, and may it never stop being so.

chapter thirty-four

It was now five minutes past four o’clock. Têtu was sitting in a deserted café near the gate of St. Denis, while the coachman across the road held fast to the horses, frightened more of losing them than of losing the carriage. Horses in a city at war, he knew well, were more valuable than gold.

Monsieur Aulard chewed nervously at his fingers, as he had not done since childhood, wondering what on earth could have happened to Didier and Yann. The street was eerily quiet. Occasionally shutters would be gingerly opened and he would see a frightened face peering out. No doubt the residents were wondering whom the carriage was waiting for and how long it would be before the enemy came marching in through the gates.

Never had the theater manager wished more that horses didn’t snort quite so loudly or that their bridles and harnesses didn’t sound like alarm bells going off. They were attracting unwanted attention, of that he was certain.

“Where are they?” he said desperately, taking out his pocket watch and opening and closing it for the umpteenth time.

Têtu, despite his earlier concerns, seemed unperturbed by the fact that they hadn’t arrived. He had his eyes shut and his feet up on a chair in front of him.

They had both come from Maître Tardieu. The old lawyer looked as if his heart wouldn’t hold out much longer.

“This will be the death of me,” he had said miserably as he had scurried away to dig out the jewels, terrified that his every movement was being watched by some invisible eye that could see straight into the heart of his molehill house. He had virtually thrown the bag of gems at Têtu, begging him to take them and be gone, relieved that at long last he could be free of this incriminating evidence.

"Think,” said Têtu cheerfully to Monsieur Aulard, "you could be sitting in your theater, bored rigid by the patriotic rubbish you have to put on. Instead you’re here, center stage in a real life drama for a change.”

“
Mort bleu, mort bleu!
Are you trying to be funny?” said poor Monsieur Aulard, pausing from chewing his nails to wipe the beads of sweat from his face.

“They’ll be here any minute,” said Têtu reassuringly. He stood up and went to pay at the café bar. “Patience, my friend, patience.”

Monsieur Aulard followed Têtu as far as the middle of the road, where he stopped, hoping upon hope that Yann and Didier might turn up. But the street remained empty.

Têtu walked past him toward the coachman, who was as jittery as a carpet full of fleas.

“Better get ready. They will be here shortly.”

“Where? But where?” said Monsieur Aulard, waving his arms wildly. “There is no sign of them.”

Without even turning around Têtu said, "Look again.”

Monsieur Aulard was a man who had spent his whole life working in the theater. A man who could boast of having been born in the dressing room between the acts of a Voltaire play, a man who after recent events most sincerely believed that nothing could ever surprise him again, but who was completely taken aback by the sight of Yann, Sido, and Didier suddenly appearing in the road before him like a mirage. So much so that he was stripped of the tools of his trade. Words simply failed him.

“I’m sorry we’re late,” said Yann. “We had a hell of a time getting here.”

"I can imagine,” said Têtu, bowing graciously. "My dear young lady, we meet again and it is with great pleasure.”

“It is so good to see you too, sir,” said Sido.

The driver, relieved at last to have his passengers, climbed down and opened the carriage door.

“Your documents are all in order,” said Têtu. “You should have no trouble traveling. You’re going as brother and sister, Sarah and Robert Laxton. You are meeting Charles Cordell in Dieppe, at the Hôtel de Paris. He has chartered a boat. I have already sent a messenger to say that you will be there in the early hours of the—”

Monsieur Aulard interrupted him, anxious to speak to Sido.

“Since your papers state that you are both English, it might be best to let Yann do all the talking. Now, the reason for your stay is that you have been at school here learning French and due to the political unrest your brother has come to take you home. I’ve packed some clothes from the theater for you—you can’t travel in your prison clothes—and enough food for the journey. You will be stopping just outside Paris so that you can change.”

While Monsieur Aulard talked away, Têtu took Yann aside and spoke to him in Romany so that they would not be overheard.

“You’ve done well. I knew you would. What of Kalliovski?”

“The last I saw of him he had been overpowered by the crowd and they were in a murderous mood,” said Yann. "I don’t see how he can have survived.”

Têtu looked relieved. Now Yann would never need to know the truth of who his father was.

“Let’s hope you’re right. Yann, I’m proud of you. Now hurry, get Sido to Dieppe and come back as soon as you can. This is not over. You promise?”

“I promise.”

Earlier that morning,
happy
was not a word Sido imagined she would ever use again, but despite all that had happened, happy was what she felt, unbelievably so, as the carriage made its way through the St. Denis gate and Paris disappeared from sight as the windmills of Montmartre came into view.

Yann, sitting opposite her, smiled, and they both burst out laughing, at what, they didn’t know. At the fact that they had done the impossible? At how fate and luck had been with them? What did it matter? They were on the road to Dieppe. They talked of everything and nothing, with the ease of long-lost friends. All Sido’s shyness was gone.