Bernard Cornwell - Fallen Angels

This was the man who came to the cell, who looked almost disinterestedly at the mess on the floor, then back to the Gypsy. ‘So you’re Gitan?’

‘I am Gitan.’

‘You know me?’

‘I know of you, citizen.’

Marchenoir smiled and waved his cigar at the scraps of the body. ‘You’re doing woman’s work, Gitan.’

‘A man is lucky to have a job these days, citizen.’

The heavy, jowled face stared at the Gypsy whose words had verged on criticism of the revolution. Then Marchenoir twitched his unshaven cheeks into a smile, into a laugh, and he kicked at the sack. ‘Why are you doing it, Gitan?’

‘The English lord wants to bury her.’

‘So let him do his own dirty work. Are you a slave?’

‘I am a horse-master.’

‘And she’s a corpse.’ Marchenoir stepped over the sack and peered at the face on the window ledge. ‘She took a long time dying.’

‘So Brissot said.’

‘Brissot has a fat mouth. One day I’ll sit on it and fill it up.’ Marchenoir spoke without anger. ‘I let them have her first. They queued from her to the second floor!’ He leaned against the wall, the candle throwing the shadows upwards on his big, red face. ‘I should have charged two livres a go, eh?’

‘Not a very revolutionary thought, citizen.’

Marchenoir laughed. He was a leader of ‘the left’, so called because they sat on the left side of the Assembly. They were revolutionaries who sought to abolish the crown, destroy the old privileges, and declare France a people’s republic. The events of the last two months were bringing that dream to fruition. Now Marchenoir blew a plume of smoke over the cell. ‘I was thinking that we ought to have a people’s brothel with girls like this. Every whore an aristo, yes? It would pay for the army.’ He looked at the girl’s head. ‘Do you think she deserved to die, horse-master?’

‘We all die,’ Gitan said. He was astonished at the brooding sense of power that was in this room. He had heard Marchenoir speak many times, he had seen the powerful arms beckoning at the crowd, listened to the voice arouse their anger and their hopes, yet still he was astonished at the sheer presence of the man.

Marchenoir chuckled at the non-committal answer. ‘She had to die, Gitan, but why? That, my friend, is my secret.’ He stabbed with his cigar at the Gypsy. ‘Nothing can be done without blood, nothing! Even the church taught that! If we fear blood we fear life! Isn’t that right, sweet child?’ He had asked the question of the severed head. He chuckled, and pushed the stub of his cigar into the dead lips. He turned back to the Gypsy. ‘I wanted to talk with you.’

‘I’m here.’ Even with such a rising, powerful man as Marchenoir, the Gypsy seemed laconically independent, yet there was a hint of respect, of deference in his bearing. Marchenoir, after all, was in the new government.

Marchenoir sat against the far wall. He was a man of extraordinary slovenliness, his clothes filthy, torn, patched and held by loops of fraying string where the buttons had come free. Gitan, whose black clothes were spotless, saw the streaks of food and spittle on the politician’s coat and reflected that such an appearance was a decided advantage for the ambitious in these days. It was certainly part of Marchenoir’s appeal. The people saw him as rough, ready, lovable, and theirs. He spoke for them, and he killed for them.

Marchenoir had taken another cigar from his waistcoat pocket and he leaned forward to light it from the candle. ‘What else are you besides a horse-master?’

Gitan shrugged. ‘Just that.’

Marchenoir stared at him. When his face was in repose it had a brooding aspect, as if his mind stirred above a pot of horrors. Slowly, he smiled. ‘I hear from Citizen Belleau that you are more.’ He ignored Gitan’s shrug. ‘You are a spy, Gitan, a spy.’

‘If Citizen Belleau says so.’

Marchenoir laughed. ‘Citizen Belleau does say so. You have, he says, given us much valuable information from the English Embassy.’

Gitan said nothing. What Marchenoir said was true. For three years, while employed by Lord Werlatton, the Gypsy had passed news to whatever government ruled in Paris. Marchenoir took a scrap of tobacco leaf from his tongue. ‘Do you deny it?’

‘No.’

‘So what happens to you, horse-master and spy, when the Embassy closes down?’

Gitan shrugged. The British Embassy was one of the last in Paris. After the slaughter of this week it would undoubtedly close. ‘There’s always a job for a good horse-master.’

‘Like a whore or lawyer, eh?’ Marchenoir’s pouchy, bloodshot eyes watched the Gypsy. ‘Does your little English lord want you to stay with him?’

Gitan paused, then nodded. ‘Yes.’

Marchenoir smiled. ‘Tell me, horse-master, do you know who your little lordling’s father is?’

‘He’s an earl.’

‘An earl.’ Marchenoir said the word with distaste. His bitter hatred for the aristocracy was at the root of his fame. ‘But not just any earl, horse-master. Before his accident he was Britain’s spymaster. Did you know that?’

‘No.’

‘The British spymaster.’ Marchenoir said it as though he spoke of a terrible ogre to a small child. He laughed and spat another shred of leaf towards the blood. ‘Lord of the English spies! The Lazenders are so damned deep into spying that they’ve got eyes in their backsides. Your little lordling’s a spy, isn’t he?’

The Gypsy did not reply, though he knew the accusation was true. Lord Werlatton’s job in the Paris Embassy was to entertain the politicians and bureaucrats of Paris. He would lavish champagne and luxury upon them, and leave the rest to their indiscretions.

Marchenoir pointed the cigar at Gitan. ‘So will you go to England with your lord, Gypsy?’

‘I don’t know.’

Marchenoir stared at him, as if considering the truth of the answer. Slowly, he smiled. ‘I want you to go with him.’ The Gypsy said nothing. Marchenoir spoke softly. ‘I want you to go, Gitan, because soon we will be at war with England, and because the English will ask you to become a spy.’

The Gypsy shrugged. ‘Why would they ask me?’

‘God made the gypsies fools?’ Marchenoir’s smile took the sting from the words. ‘They will have a French-speaking man whom they know has friends in Paris. Of course they’ll recruit you! They will think you work for them, but really you will work for me.’ He said the last words slowly and forcefully.

‘For you?’

‘I need a messenger, horse-master, who can travel between here and London. A messenger who can travel in utter safety.’ Marchenoir’s voice was low and urgent. ‘So let them recruit you. In England they will protect you, and in France we will protect you. What could be more perfect? Our enemy will be your friend.’

The Gypsy did not speak or move. His odd, light blue eyes stared at the other man, his long black hair clung to shadow his thin face.

Marchenoir pointed to the candle with his cigar. His voice was still low. ‘It is not I who ask, Gitan, nor France. It is that.’

The Gypsy looked at the flame. He knew the secret message that was being given to him. The candle gave light, and light was reason, and reason was the gospel of the Illuminati . ‘For reason?’

Marchenoir smiled. His voice was low. ‘For reason, which is above the law.’

The Gypsy looked from the candle to the powerful man. For the first time the Gypsy smiled easily, his fear of Marchenoir gone. Now he knew why such an important man had sought him out. Even Gitan’s voice seemed to change. He no longer was wary, he spoke now as if to an equal because he had discovered that this most dangerous, forceful man was, like himself, a member of the secret Illuminati . ‘I sometimes feared that the brethren slept.’