For the King (35 page)

“Oh, yes, as you swore to tell me the truth during our last meeting. So you don’t know where your lover is hiding?”

“He never was my lover. We met at the end of November, and he fell in love with me. I believe so, at least.”

“Ah, yes, another one of those fools.” Roch glared at Blanche. “But this won’t be quite enough to keep this lovely head of yours on your shoulders. Come, Citizen, let’s do better than this. Tell me about this business with the stagecoach from Rennes. All of the letters from George to Paris come this way, don’t they? And that servant of yours, that fellow in the goatskin jacket, brings them here. See, I already know.”

Blanche hesitated. “I take the letters to Paris in my carriage. They are hidden in a secret compartment in the door panel. And I do the same thing with the letters addressed to George from Paris. It is as fast as the post office, in fact. The guards at the barriers know me well, and they never search my carriage.”

The pug burst out into a new frenzy of yelping. Blanche stroked its head. It kept quiet after one last resentful bark.

“And then,” asked Roch, casting a malevolent look at the dog, “once the letters are in Paris, you arrange to have them delivered to your accomplices.”

“They retrieve them at the Five Diamonds. They also drop their letters to George there.”

Roch scoffed. “Well, of course, the Five Diamonds. So beautifully simple. You have everything at your fingertips there: your own little post office, and also a discreet love nest. No wonder I ran into Limoëlan nearby. He was retrieving or dropping his mail at the shop. How did you come to be called
For the King
?”

“That is the name Mother Duquesne gave me at the Convent when I was a child, because I would say that I would lay down my life for the King.”

Roch was pacing the room. “Ah, yes, the Sisters of Saint-Michel! And I have known all along that you had been educated in a convent. What an idiot I was not to think of it!”

“Mama sent me there when I was five, and I stayed until the age of fifteen. So actually Mother Duquesne is the one who raised me. I was her favorite pupil.”

“It was that fanatic who poisoned your mind with that Royalist nonsense!”

“She is no fanatic, and it is not nonsense! She told me of the late King and Queen, of their lives and martyrdoms, and of the cause. And I still believe in the restoration of the King.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Yes, more than ever, though I loathe what Limoëlan did in its name. Those crimes can only hurt the cause. Mother Duquesne doesn’t condone them either.”

“Yet she gave Short Francis shelter at the Convent.”

“Only because I begged her to hide him. Limoëlan told me that Francis was on the verge of being arrested, that I had to convince Mother Duquesne to give him shelter.”

“So she agreed.”

“Because she thought it was the only way to help me.” Blanche hung her head. “And now she is in jail because of me . . . Oh, Roch, what will happen to her?”

“She still maintains that she didn’t know anything of Carbon’s involvement in the assassination plot. It remains to be seen whether the judges and jury believe her when she stands trial. There’s another interesting point, though: she also maintains that the Cicé woman, not you, brought Francis to the Convent. She never stopped protecting you, whatever the consequences to herself.”

“My God . . . my God . . .” Blanche whispered. “What have I done?”

“Pertinent question.” A vision intruded upon Roch’s mind. Carbon. Naked, pudgy, hairy, seated on his narrow bed at the Convent, and Blanche, also naked, kneeling on the floor between his legs. There were more unbearable images: Francis pulling her up onto his lap, kneading her beautiful breasts, spreading her long white thighs apart. Now was the time to press her for the truth.

“Unfortunately for you,” continued Roch, “someone else was less discreet. Not only does Francis say you were the one who took him to the Convent, but he boasts that, once there, you bedded him with much enthusiasm. He speaks very highly of your skills and allurements. You made quite an impression on him.”

“He is lying, the filthy beast!” cried Blanche. “He is even worse than I thought.”

“Think of it. This will make for a few picturesque, memorable scenes at trial: Francis Carbon and Blanche Coudert, lovers and accomplices, seated next to each other in the dock. Posterity will remember you not as a martyr to the Royalist cause, but as the whore of the ugliest, most disgusting man in Paris.”

Blanche shuddered. “He is lying. I simply told him I would return the next day. But of course I never went back. I never saw him again.”

“Rather odd, I must say. I can’t imagine Francis being content with mere promises and letting you go. Come, dear, tell me the truth.”

“Mother Duquesne arrived in his room when he was ready to force himself on me. I ran away, and wrote him the next day.”

“So
you
sent him that note in capitals!”

“And with it I sent Francis a gold watch, enameled in blue, the most garish I could find. He is very vain, very fond of finery. He fancies himself a great favorite with the ladies, and he even believes I like him. I knew he would be pleased to receive something like that from me.”

Roch stared at Blanche’s face. “So that watch was a token of your affection. And in that note, you wrote Francis that you would let his sister know where he was.”

“I knew that Francis would become restless at the Convent without female company, that he would complain to Limoëlan that I wasn’t visiting him. I knew through Saint-Régent that Francis slept with his sister. So I thought he wouldn’t miss me too much if she went to the Convent.”

“Now that was clever of you! The woman probably thought it was a bit risky, so instead she sent her daughter, who in turn led us to the Convent. What did your saintly friend Mother Duquesne think of those visits?”

“Oh, she left Francis alone in his room.”

“Rather wise of her. And what about Limoëlan? How has he such a grip on your mind? You do everything he wants, no matter how revolting.”

“I had no choice. He threatened to report me to George as a traitor. He has lost all trust in me.”

“Why?”

Blanche hung her head.

“Might it have anything to do with me?” continued Roch. “Please enlighten me. You did not meet me by chance, or become my mistress for love, did you?”

“Limoëlan asked me to seduce you. He knew from his spy at the Prefecture that you came to Mama’s salon every week.”

“Which spy?”

“One of your Inspectors, a man called Bachelot.”

“Bachelot wasn’t enough?”

“No. Limoëlan wanted some documents to which Bachelot had no access, like the list of all of the traitors in our midst who worked for the police. So I convinced Mama to arrange a meeting between us at the gaming salon.”

“And then what? You thought I would just open my office to you, and let you help yourself to whatever was of interest to your friends? I am afraid you had not a very high opinion of me.”

“I realized that you were not that kind of man, that I would never get any information from you. I should have broken our liaison, but I didn’t want to lose you.” She held her hands to him. “
I
was the one to fall in love.”

“And how you proved it!” There was poison in his voice now. “Are you Limoëlan’s mistress too?”

“No, he never liked me in that manner, in any manner in fact. He despises me. Mademoiselle de Cicé must have told him of my true relationship to Monsieur Coudert. Anyway, Limoëlan is in love with a young lady, a friend of his sisters.”

“And your mother, what part has she played in this business, in addition to introducing us?”

“None. I had to insist a great deal before she agreed to do even that. She wants nothing to do with politics nowadays. She was very angry when she discovered that I had become a fervent Royalist at the Convent. She had a terrible dispute with Mother Duquesne. Mama accused her of betraying her trust, of turning the head of a child with all of those ideas. She forbade me to see Mother Duquesne ever again.”

“But you did not obey?”

“I had no choice as long as I lived with Mama. I did not see Mother Duquesne at all for three full years. But as soon as I was married, I went to the Convent again. Mother Duquesne introduced me to her friend Mademoiselle de Cicé, and told her of my old name of
For the King
. One day, as I was leaving, Mademoiselle de Cicé took me aside and asked me whether I still deserved that name. I said that I did, more than ever. Then some weeks later she mentioned that George needed a trusted go-between to forward his correspondence between Paris and Brittany. Right away I thought of this house, which is so close to the stagecoaches, and of the Five Diamonds. I have patronized the shop for years. I was happy to help the cause by forwarding George’s correspondence. It seemed innocent enough, even thrilling. But last summer Mademoiselle de Cicé introduced me to the Little Painter, and everything changed.”

“The
Little Painter
? Is that Madame de Nallet?”

“Félicie? Oh, no! I have known her forever. We were raised together at the Convent, though she is five years older than I. She doesn’t even know Limoëlan. She has nothing to do with any of this.”

“Is she the friend who provided an alibi for your little escapade with that man Rivoyre you supposedly married?”

“Yes.”

“So then who is the
Little Painter
?”

“Limoëlan. That is what Mademoiselle de Cicé called him before the Revolution, and he still uses it as a code name. She showed me the miniature portraits of his sisters he had painted then.”

“Charming. A pity he did not keep to that sort of talent.”

“I don’t know what he used to be when he was younger, but he is an evil man now. By the time I met him last summer, I had been forwarding George’s correspondence for months. I was already compromised, but I still could have refused. When he asked me to seduce you, I thought that I would simply make you fall in love with me, and that would be all. I was still very naïve. Of course things did not go as I had planned. And after my failure with you, I couldn’t refuse Limoëlan anything, and he kept pressing me to do more and more things.”

“Here is what comes from having fine friends like yours.” Roch’s eyes narrowed. “So thanks to your accomplices, dozens of innocents were killed, maimed for life, at random, all for nothing. That does not bother you?”

Blanche’s fingers were twisting the fringe of the crimson belt that tied her gown under her breasts. “Oh, yes, it does. But then the initial plan was still worse. Limoëlan wanted to blow up the entire Opera House, with Bonaparte in it, in the middle of the show. I was horrified. I realized that the Opera would be full that night, that there would be hundreds of victims, just to kill one man. It would tarnish the cause forever. So I talked to Saint-Régent and begged him not to let that happen. He promised he would convince Limoëlan to change the plan. Then, a few days later, Saint-Régent said that they had thought of a better idea. Both of them, with a few other Chouans, were to ambush Bonaparte on the road to his country house of Malmaison. They would overcome his escort. In that manner only a few dragoons would be killed, and of course Bonaparte.”

“This is preposterous! Limoëlan and Saint-Régent, with the help of a few other men, hoped to overcome all the riders of Bonaparte’s escort? And you believed that tale?”

“Certainly. Saint-Régent told me that Limoëlan had purchased half a dozen air guns.”

Roch whistled silently. He had never handled or even seen air guns, but he knew of them. They were powerful, noiseless, smokeless, for the bullets were propelled not by the explosion of gunpowder, but by a removable compressed-air reservoir.

“How could Limoëlan afford all those air guns? Each would have cost a small fortune.”

“George had sent him a great deal of gold he had received from the English government.”

Indeed air guns were so expensive that they were not used by the Army, not even by the elite units in charge of Bonaparte’s safety. They were remarkably efficient. An automatic magazine, loaded from the breech, could shoot twenty bullets a minute. A small group of seasoned, determined Chouans, armed with those weapons, could hope to overcome all of Bonaparte’s guards.

“Who are those other men?” asked Roch.

“I don’t know anything about them, only that they were to join Limoëlan and Saint-Régent somewhere on the road to Malmaison.”

“Do Limoëlan and Saint-Régent still intend to proceed with that plan?” asked Roch.

“I don’t know. Limoëlan doesn’t tell me anything, and I haven’t seen Saint-Régent in a week.”

Roch rested his hands on the arms of Blanche’s chair, bending over her. He looked into her eyes. “I want those guns, Blanche.”

“Limoëlan has them, and I don’t know where he keeps them. I am not even sure anymore that the air gun plan was real.”

Roch was struck by a sudden idea. “So you didn’t go to the Opera that night. You worried that your friends might blow up the place after all!”

“I no longer knew what to think.”

Roch stood in front of Blanche, his hands on his hips. “You stayed home that night. And, like an imbecile, I worried about your safety! What did you tell Coudert? That you had a headache? That you didn’t find your gown elegant enough for the occasion? Or is he part of this monstrous business?”

Blanche’s eyes were wild with terror. “No, please, he is innocent. He is, Roch. He has never suspected what I was doing. He lets me do whatever I want, come and go as I like. If he knew . . .”

“Maybe he should have kept a closer eye on you. But let us go back to the 3rd of Nivose. You didn’t go to the Opera that night. And I happen to know someone, another policeman, who waited in vain for his lady in her box. How rude of you to disappoint an admirer! You are Piis’s Photis, are you not?”