C. Harris - Why Kings Confess

Something leapt in her eyes. “I didn’t mean-”

The rattle of a wagon trace jerked their attention again to the lane. A brewer’s wagon labored through the snow, pulled by a heavy team and proceeded by a trotting linkboy. The linkboy’s flaring torch played over the crumbling archway where the curly-headed man had lurked.

It was now empty.

“He’s gone,” she said, her hand clenching on the folds of the blanket she held tightly around her. “This is what he does. He watches me for a while, and then he goes away.”

“And did it never occur to you that this Bullock could very well be the man who attacked you in Cat’s Hole and ripped out Damion Pelletan’s heart?”

She shook her head. “If he’d killed me, it might make sense. But why let me live and kill Damion?” An arrested expression came over her features. “Unless-”

“Unless what?” prompted Gibson when she broke off.

But she only shook her head, her face pale, her lips pressed tightly together as if she was afraid to give voice to her thoughts.

T hat evening, as the snow continued to fall, Sebastian prowled the taverns and coffeehouses of the city.

He began in Pall Mall and Piccadilly, targeting very specific establishments, places like the White Hart and the Queen’s Head that catered to a special kind of clientele. As he ventured farther east, the patrons became perceptively rougher, bricklayers and butchers now mingling with barristers, soldiers, and the occasional well-dressed dandy or Corinthian. They were a disparate lot, although all shared one dangerous secret: In an age when carnal knowledge of one’s own sex was a capital offense, these men risked death to meet and mingle with one another.

Many of the men, or “mollies” as they often called themselves, adopted aliases: colorful monikers like Marigold Mistress, or Nell Gin, or St. Giles’s Jan. Sebastian was looking for a certain well-known flamboyant Miss Molly known as Serena Fox.

But he was having trouble finding her.

He was standing at the counter of a tavern just off Lincoln’s Inn Fields, drinking a pint of ale and watching two men-one dressed in an elegant blue velvet gown, the other a bricklayer in heavy boots-dance, when a tall, slim woman in an emerald silk gown came to lean against a nearby wall, her hands behind her back, her head tilted to one side. “I hear you’re looking for Serena Fox. Rather indefatigably.”

Sebastian shifted his stance and took a slow swallow of his ale. The woman was no longer young, but her softly curling chestnut hair was still vibrant, the flesh of her strong, square jaw still taut, her mouth wide and full. “Hello, LaChapelle,” said Sebastian.

She pursed her lips and shook her head, her French accent a throaty purr. “Here, it is Serena. What do you want with me?”

“I need some rather delicate information. And asking questions of royals-even dethroned ones-tends to be both difficult and unproductive.”

“Is there a reason why I should help you?”

Sebastian took a deep drink of his ale. “Three days ago, a man with ties to the Bourbons had his heart ripped out by an unknown killer. I should think that would be reason enough for anyone interested in the well-being of the dynasty.”

Serena’s features remained flawlessly composed. But Sebastian saw her nostrils flare on a quick, betraying breath. “I can tell you some things. What do you want to know?”

“Is it true that Marie-Therese shuts herself in her chamber every twenty-first of January and devotes the day to prayer?”

“Every January twenty-first and every October sixteenth.”

“Why the sixteenth of October?”

“That is the day her mother, Marie Antoinette, was guillotined.”

“What about the eighth of June?”

Serena shook her head, not understanding. “What’s the significance of the eighth of June?”

“That’s the date her little brother, the Dauphin, died in the Temple Prison-according to Provence.”

“Ah, that’s right.” Serena turned to signal for a brandy.

Sebastian watched her. He said, “Marie-Therese doesn’t believe her little brother is really dead, does she?”

Serena raked her hair back from her head in a gesture that was considerably more masculine than feminine. “I suspect it would be more accurate to say she hopes he is alive. But I have always suspected that in her heart of hearts she knows he is not.”

“Tell me what happened to him.”

Serena lowered her gaze to the amber liquid in her glass. It was a moment before she spoke. “The Dauphin was eight years old when he was taken from the room in which Marie Antoinette and Marie-Therese were kept, and thrust alone into a cell directly below them. When he cried for his mother, his jailors beat him. Unmercifully. His mother and sister could hear his screams, hear him begging for them to stop. But that was only the beginning.” He paused.

“Go on.”

“The revolutionaries-perhaps even Robespierre himself-drew up a confession they insisted he sign. When he refused, they beat him again. Day after day.”

“What sort of confession?”

“In it, he claimed to have been seduced by his mother and debauched by his sister and his aunt, Elisabeth. They wanted to use it at the Queen’s trial.”

“Did he sign it?”

“In the end, yes.”

“But surely no one believed such nonsense?”

Serena shrugged. “Far too many people will believe anything of those they hate, no matter how absurd or patently fabricated it may be. And to the revolutionaries, the Bourbons became the personification of evil.”

“What happened after he did as they demanded and signed the confession?”

“I’ve heard his jailors had promised that if he signed, he’d be allowed to rejoin what was left of his family. But it was a promise they did not keep. His jailor was a member of the Paris Commune, a cobbler named Antoine Simon. Simon’s instructions were to erase all traces of gentility and pride in the boy. On good days, Simon and his wife taught him the language of the gutters, plied him with wine, put a bonnet rouge on his head, and taught him to sing the Marseillaise . On bad days, they beat him, just for the fun of it.”

Sebastian took a swallow of his ale, but it tasted bitter and flat on his tongue.

Serena said, “Yet as bad as all that was, it eventually grew worse. Simon and his wife were replaced with new jailors, who starved the boy and refused to empty his slop bucket. The window of his cell was blocked up, depriving the child of both light and air. He grew increasingly ill. With no one to care for him, he was simply left to lie in his own excrement. He eventually lost the ability either to walk or speak.” Serena glanced over at Sebastian. “You’re certain you want to hear this?”

“Yes.”

Serena nodded. “We know these things because, after the events of Thermidor, inquiries were made. A representative of the National Convention, a man by the name of Barras, was sent to visit the children in the Temple. He found the Dauphin lying on a filthy cot in a dark, noisome room so foul no one could even enter it. His skin was gray-green, his rags and hair alive with vermin, his stomach bloated from starvation, his half-naked body covered with bruises and welts from his endless beatings.”

“And his mind?”

“He was visibly terrified of anyone and everyone who came near him, and completely unable to speak.”

“So what happened?”

“At Barras’s insistence, the child was given a new jailor, a man named Laurent, who was ordered to see that the boy was bathed and fed, and his cell cleaned. They say that on occasion Laurent would even carry the boy up to the Tower’s battlements so that he could breathe the fresh air and watch the birds flying in the sky. But it was all too late. The boy was desperately ill. He died.”