The Forbidden Rose

Whatever had been here once, it was stripped away. Too many men had waited for death right where he was sitting. The walls whispered desolation. The air was heavy inside his lungs, like dead men had been breathing it.

He pulled his hat off and let his head fall back against the plaster. His hair was wet with sweat. And his shirt, under the waistcoat. Fear sweat. He was used to being dirty when the job called for it, but this felt clammy and filthy.

Hell of a way for a spy to end, done in by a jealous little Frenchman, protecting his family honor.

Maggie could take care of herself. But not when she was sick. Her eyes were strange, the pupils all dilated. Something wrong. Something very wrong. He had to get out of here. Had to get to Maggie. Had to—

Put it away. Put it away till you can do something about it. Carruthers would take care of Maggie. She’d do that for him. He could trust her to do that.

There was a general shuffling in the hall outside. More men filed in the door. Twenty-three men. They sat on the mats in the clutter of their possessions, or leaned against the walls, or paced back and forth, stepping over things—all of them talking, stinking, coughing, breathing each other’s breath, their bodies heating up the stifling air.

Nobody came near him. Nobody looked at him straight. Nobody stopped to talk. They knew how to treat new prisoners here. They left a man alone to make his own peace with the situation.

He needed that time.

He set his hat down beside him, deliberate and careful, keeping his breath steady. Getting through one more minute without breaking and throwing himself at the walls.

The floor under him was black oak, boards worn smooth from being scrubbed religiously for a couple centuries. There was a layer of stickiness on them now, made of fear and dust and sweat and worse than that. Nobody’d washed them since the Revolution.

Victor de Fleurignac had been waiting for him.

I played right into his hands. Love is the very devil.

Maggie. The muscles in his chest tightened and wouldn’t let loose.

A guard appeared at the door, one he hadn’t seen before. So the guards changed at noon. Middle-aged, medium height, fifteen stone, wearing the red Phrygian cap that showed he was a loyal revolutionary. He was better dressed than the other guards. Might mean he had a careful wife. Might mean he was a dandy among the sans-culottes. Might mean he took bribes.

And this one could read. He went through a paper, looking up, looking down, matching names and prisoners.

They feed us at midday. Then they count us. How many hours till they count again?

The guard finished and went off to check the count in the next room. There were women in there, including some nuns. He’d seen them walk by in the corridor.

Galba would be the one to tell his father that his youngest son was dead, on the public block, in France. That was a poke in the eye for the old man. A Markham, even an extra son nobody had any use for, didn’t die in a public execution. Just like his father always predicted, he’d finally made himself a blot on the Markham escutcheon.

Maybe he’d take that thought to the guillotine with him and pull it out at the last minute to warm himself up, so he wouldn’t start shaking at the end.

He wouldn’t waste his last minutes thinking about that bitter old man. He’d be thinking about Maggie.

He swallowed. His mouth was foul and dry from being afraid. On the way in, they’d marched him past the door to the cloister and he’d seen a well out there. When they let the men out of this room, he’d get himself a drink of water out in the courtyard.

He wouldn’t feel so trapped if he had sky overhead.

He’d been feeling an eye on him for a few minutes.

A priest, wearing the black cassock, headed in his direction, walking crooked and painful, stopping to rest and talk with one man and then another. He’d be one of the priests who wouldn’t swear to the Republic. Not too many of them left in Paris. The guillotine cut them down like ripe grain.

“A newcomer.” It was a clear, educated Parisian accent.

“Don’t get up. I will join you, if you don’t mind. We have a shortage of chairs, so the ground must serve me.”

The hand that clamped down to take the support of Doyle’s shoulder was surprisingly firm. There was something wrong with the man’s legs, though. The weight of the priest was nothing at all—the bird bones and the tough leather flesh of the old.

Doyle reached up and grasped forearms with the man, helping him down to sit next to him. The cassock was ragged at the hem but made of heavy black silk. He’d been an aristocrat among priests.

“Father.” Doyle settled back down.

The priest took three or four shallow breaths before he spoke. There was pain inside the man. You could see it in his eyes. Not much life left in him. Hardly enough to be worth the Republic’s while killing him. Maybe they were hoping he’d die in prison. The priest said, “Yes. Thank you.” Another breath. “Your name, my son?”

“Guillaume, mon Père. Guillaume LeBreton.”

“By your voice, you’re a long way from home, Guillaume LeBreton. I am accustomed to write letters for men who wish to send them. I’ll attempt to send one for you even as far as Brittany, if this would comfort you.”

“There’s no one left to send it to. No one’s expecting me back.”

The priest touched his sleeve with a stick and tendon of a hand, half scarecrow. “Then no one there is afraid for you. It is a poor comfort, but a real one. I am Father Jérôme, a priest of Saint-Sulpice, paying for a misspent life with an uncomfortable ending.” He carried a black box under his arm. When he set it across his lap it was topped with a black and white inlay of squares. Not a book. A chessboard. “I discovered, in the end, that I possessed a conscience. A most inconvenient appendage. And you? Why are you here, my son?”

“A mistake.”

“We are fifty mistakes in this place.” Under the murmur and cough of the other men, the priest chuckled. “Except possibly a few of our criminal brothers who admit to some small errors in honesty. We have our thieves, and our whores, and one poor forger who was unwise enough to print political writings when he was not forging. If you are a thief, I have some fine sermons about thievery.”

“I’m not so lucky. Seems I’ve committed a crime against the Revolution. I’m that buffle-headed, I can’t remember doing it.”

“That is unfortunate, Guillaume. But you will find the invention of the Tribunal is nearly infinite. You will be amazed at what you’ve been up to.” Father Jérôme shifted and sighed with the dry breath of old age. “I take confession in the hall upstairs in the evenings. The guards look the other way for an hour. You’re a big block of a lad. You will help me up the stairs tonight. The pair who have been assisting me left this morning.”

“They left” meant they’d gone to the Conciergerie and trial. They’d be dead by now, or on their way to it.

“Glad to. I’ve a broad back for it.”

“We will put your back to good use then. When they count us tonight and bring the bread and soup, collect an extra loaf to be the Host. The guard will pretend not to see. Bring it upstairs with us. We will pass the climb discussing your sins, which are doubtless numerous.”

“There’s a few.”

“You shall be my first absolution of the night. My penances are light these days. Leave me in the dark at the top of the stairs. It serves as my confessional. Those who have been called to trial tomorrow will come last. When they’re finished, come for me again. I say Mass on the stairs. How long has it been since your last confession, Guillaume?”

“Years.” Maybe he’d believed in a benevolent God when he was a child. Not for a long time. “That’s a chessboard.”

The priest sat up straighter. “Do you play?” He touched the box he held. “They allow me to keep this and my breviary. I hate to admit they’re both comforts to me. My last chess partner, alas, has moved on.”

“I play.” He watched in silence as the priest opened the box and set the chessmen on the floor. It was an old