At last the aging servant Pierre emerged from the gatehouse, shuffling toward the iron gates where she stood silently in the shadows of the spreading chestnuts.
“Madame,” he said, not recognizing her, “the master sees no one before luncheon—and never without an appointment.”
“But Pierre, surely he will consent to see me,” said Mireille, lowering her veil.
Pierre’s eyes grew large, and his chin began to tremble. He fumbled with his heavy keys to unlock the iron gates. “Mademoiselle,” he whispered, “we have prayed for you every day.” There were tears of joy in his eyes as he threw open the gates. Mireille embraced him quickly, then the two hurried across the courtyard.
David, alone in his studio, was whittling at a large block of wood—a sculpture of Atheism that would be torched next month at the Festival of the Supreme Being. The scent of freshly cut wood pervaded the air. Piles of shavings covered the floor, and sawdust coated the rich velvet of his jacket. He turned as the door behind him opened, then leapt to his feet, upsetting the stool, the bevel falling from his hand.
“I’m dreaming, or I’ve gone mad!” he cried, shedding a cloud of sawdust as he flew across the room and grasped Mireille in a powerful embrace. “Thank God you’re safe!” He held her away for a better look. “When you left, Marat came with a deputation, rooting about in my garden with his ministers and delegates from the gutter like pigs searching for truffles! I had no idea those chess pieces really existed! Had you confided in me, I might have helped.…”
“You can help me now,” said Mireille, sinking to a chair in exhaustion. “Has someone come here seeking me? I expect an emissary from the abbess.”
“My dear child,” David said in a worried voice, “there’ve been several here in Paris during your absence—young women who wrote, seeking an interview with you or Valentine. But I was sick with fear for you. I gave these notes to Robespierre, thinking it might help us find you.”
“Robespierre! My God, what have you done?” cried Mireille.
“He’s a close friend who can be trusted,” David said hastily. “They call him ‘the Incorruptible.’ No one could bribe him from his duty. Mireille, I’ve told him of your involvement with the Montglane Service. He was also searching for you—”
“No!” Mireille screamed. “No one must know I’m here or that you’ve even seen me! Don’t you see—Valentine was murdered for those pieces. My life is in danger as well. Tell me how many nuns there were, whose letters you gave to this man.”
David was pale with fear as he searched his mind. Could she be right? Perhaps he’d miscalculated.…
“There were five,” he told her. “I’ve a record of their names in my study.”
“Five nuns,” she whispered. “Five more dead on my account. Because I was not here.” Her eyes stared vacantly into space.
“Dead!” said David. “But he never interrogated them. He found they’d vanished—every one.”
“We can only pray that’s true,” she said, focusing her gaze on him. “My uncle, these pieces are dangerous beyond anything you can imagine. We must learn more of Robespierre’s involvement, without letting him know I’m here. And Marat—where is he? For if that man learned of this, even our prayers would not help.”
“He’s at home, gravely ill,” whispered David. “Ill, but more powerful than ever. Three months ago, the Girondins brought him to trial for advocating murder and dictatorship, for overthrowing the tenets of the Revolution—liberty, equality, fraternity. But Marat was acquitted by a frightened jury, crowned with laurel by the rabble, carried through the streets by cheering throngs and elected president of the Jacobin Club. Now he sits at home denouncing the Girondins who crossed him. Most have been arrested; the rest have fled to the provinces. He rules the State from his bath with the weapon of fear. What they say of our revolution seems true—the fire that destroys cannot build.”
“But it can be consumed by a greater flame,” said Mireille. “That flame is the Montglane Service. Once united, it will devour even Marat. I’ve returned to Paris to unleash this force. And I expect you to help me.”
“But don’t you hear what I’ve said?” David cried. “It’s this very vengeance and betrayal that’s torn our country apart. Where will it end? If we believe in God, we must believe in a divine justice that in time will restore sanity.”
“I have no time,” said Mireille. “I will not wait for God.”
JULY 11, 1793
Another nun who could not wait was even then hastening toward Paris.
Charlotte Corday arrived in the city by post chaise at ten o’clock in the morning. After registering at a small hotel nearby, she headed for the National Convention.
The abbess’s letter, smuggled to her at Caen by Ambassador Genet, had been long in coming but clear in its message. The pieces sent to Paris last September with Sister Claude had disappeared. Another nun had died along with Claude in the Terror—young Valentine. Valentine’s cousin had disappeared without a trace. Charlotte had contacted the Girondin faction—former convention delegates now holed up at Caen—in hopes they’d know who’d been at l’Abbaye Prison, the last place Mireille had been seen before she’d vanished.
The Girondins knew nothing of a red-haired girl who’d disappeared amid that madness, but their leader, the handsome Barbaroux, sympathized with the former nun who sought her friend. The pass he gave her secured permission for a brief interview with Deputy Lauze Duperret, who met her at the Convention in the visitors’ antechamber.
“I come from Caen,” Charlotte began as soon as the distinguished deputy was seated opposite her at the polished table. “I seek a friend who disappeared during the prison troubles last September. Like myself, she was a former nun whose convent had been closed.”
“Charles-Jean-Marie Barbaroux has done me no great service by sending you here,” said the deputy, raising a cynical eyebrow. “He’s a wanted man—or hadn’t you heard? Does he want them to put out a warrant for my arrest as well? I’ve enough troubles of my own, as you may tell him upon your return to Caen—which I hope will be soon.” He started to rise.
“Please,” said Charlotte, putting out her hand. “My friend was at l’Abbaye Prison when the massacres began. Her body was never found. We’ve cause to believe she escaped, but no one knows where. You must tell me—who among the Assembly members presided over those trials?”
Duperret paused and smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. “No one escaped from l’Abbaye,” he told her curtly. “A few were acquitted—I could count the number on my two hands. If you were foolish enough to come here, perhaps you’ll be fool enough to interrogate the man who was responsible for the Terror. But I wouldn’t recommend it. His name is Marat.”
JULY 12, 1793
Mireille, now in a dress of red-and-white dotted Swiss and a straw hat with colorful streamers, descended from David’s open carriage and asked the driver to wait. She hurried into the vast, crowded market quarter of Les Halles, one of the oldest in the city.
In the two days since she’d arrived at Paris, she’d learned enough to act on at once. She did not need to wait for instructions from the abbess. Not only had five nuns vanished with their pieces, but others, David told her, knew of the Montglane Service—and of her involvement. Too many others: Robespierre, Marat, and André Philidor, the chess master and composer whose opera she had seen with Madame de Staël. Philidor, said David, had fled to England. But just before leaving, he’d told David of a meeting he’d had with the great mathematician Leonhard Euler and a composer named Bach. Bach had taken Euler’s formula for the Knight’s Tour and turned it into music. These men thought the secret of the Montglane Service was related to music. How many others had advanced this far?
Mireille moved through the open-air markets, passing colorful arrays of vegetables, viands, and seafood that only the rich could afford. Her heart was pounding, her mind spinning. She had to act at once, while she knew their whereabouts but before they discovered hers. They were
all like pawns on a chessboard, driven toward an unseen center in a game as inexorable as fate. The abbess had been right in saying they must gather the reins into their own hands. But it was Mireille herself who must take control. For now, she realized, she knew more than the abbess—more perhaps than anyone—about the Montglane Service.
Philidor’s tale supported what Talleyrand had told her and Letizia Buonaparte had confirmed: there was a formula in the service. Something the abbess had never mentioned. But Mireille knew. Before her eyes still floated the strange pale figure of the White Queen—with the staff of the Eight in her upraised hand.
Mireille descended into the labyrinth, that portion of Les Halles that once had been Roman catacombs but was now an underground market. Here were booths of copper wares, ribbons, spices, and silks from the East. She passed a small cafe with tables in the narrow passageway, where a cluster of butchers still smeared with the marks of their trade sat eating cabbage soup and playing dominoes. Her glazed eyes focused on the blood on their bare arms, their white aprons. Closing her eyes, she pushed on through the narrow labyrinth.
At the end of the second passage was a cutlery shop. Looking through the wares, she tested the strength and sharpness of each before finding one that suited her—a dinner knife with a six-inch balanced blade, similar to the bousaadi she’d used with such skill in the desert. She had the vendor whet the blade until it could split a hair.
Only one question now remained. How would she get in? She watched the merchant wrap the sheathed knife in brown paper. Mireille paid him two francs, tucked the package under her arm, and departed.
JULY 13, 1793
Her question was answered the next afternoon, when she and David sat quarreling in the small dining room beside the studio. As a Convention delegate, he could secure her entry to Marat’s quarters. But he refused—he was afraid. Their heated conversation was interrupted by the servant Pierre.
“A lady’s at the gate, sire. She asks for you, seeking information about Mademoiselle Mireille.”
“Who is it?” asked Mireille, casting a quick glance at David.
“A lady as tall as yourself, mademoiselle,” Pierre replied, “and with red hair—calling herself Corday.”
“Show her in,” said Mireille, much to David’s surprise.
So this was the emissary, thought Mireille when Pierre had departed. She remembered the cold, fierce companion of Alexandrine de Forbin, who’d come to Montglane three years ago to tell them the pieces of the Montglane Service were in jeopardy. Now she’d been sent by the abbess—but she’d come too late.
When Charlotte Corday was shown into the room, she halted, staring at Mireille in disbelief. She sat hesitantly in the chair David held for her, never taking her eyes from Mireille. Here sat the woman whose news had brought the service from the earth, thought Mireille. Though time had changed them both, they were still alike in appearance—tall, large-boned, with unbound red curls framing their oval faces—alike enough to be sisters. Yet so far apart.
“I’d come in desperation,” Charlotte began. “Finding all trails to you cold, all doors closed. I must speak with you alone.” She glanced uneasily at David, who excused himself. When he’d left she said, “The pieces—are they safe?”
“The pieces,” said Mireille with bitterness. “Always the pieces. I marvel at the tenacity of our abbess—a woman entrusted by God with the souls of fifty women, women cloistered from the world, who believed in her as in their own lives. She told us the pieces were dangerous—but not that we’d be hunted down and killed for them! What sort of shepherd leads his own sheep to the slaughter?”
“I understand. You are devastated by the death of your cousin,” said Charlotte. “But it was an accident! Caught in a mob scene with my beloved Sister Claude. You cannot permit this to corrupt your faith. The abbess has chosen you for a mission.…”
“I choose my own missions now,” cried Mireille, her green eyes burning with passion. “My first, to confront the man who murdered my cousin—for it was no accident! Five more nuns have disappeared in this last year. I think he knows what has become of them, and of the pieces in their charge. And I have a score to settle.”
Charlotte had put her hand to her breast. Her face was white as she stared across the table at Mireille. Her voice trembled.
“Marat!” she whispered. “I’ve learned of his involvement—but not this! The abbess did not know of these missing nuns.”
“It would seem there are many things our abbess doesn’t know,” replied Mireille. “But I do. Though I do not intend to thwart her, I think you understand there are things I must accomplish first. Do you stand with me—or against me?”
Charlotte looked at Mireille across the dining table, her deep blue eyes intense with emotion. At last she reached out and placed her hand over Mireille’s. Mireille felt herself trembling.
“We will defeat them,” said Charlotte with great force. “Whatever you require of me, I shall be at your side—as the abbess would wish.”
“You have learned of Marat’s involvement,” Mireille said with tension in her voice. “What more do you know of the man?”
“I tried to see him, seeking you,” Charlotte replied, lowering her voice. “I was turned away from his door by a porter. But I’ve written him for an appointment—this evening.”
“Does he live alone?” pressed Mireille with excitement.
“He shares rooms with his sister Albertine—and Simonne Évrard, his ‘natural’ wife. But surely you can’t mean to go there yourself? If you give your name, or they guess who you are, you’ll be arrested.…”
“I don’t plan to give my name,” Mireille said with a slow smile. “I’ll give them yours.”
It was sunset when Mireille and Charlotte arrived, in the back of a hired cabriolet, at the allée across from Marat’s quarters. The sky’s reflection turned the windowpanes blood red; the waning sun licked the paving stones with copper.
“I must know what reason you gave in your letter for an interview,” Mireille told Charlotte.
“I wrote him I’d come from Caen,” said Charlotte, “to report the activities of Girondins against the government. I said I knew of plots laid there.”
“Give me your papers,” said Mireille, holding out her hand, “in case I need proof to get inside.”
“I pray for you,” Charlotte said, handing over the papers, which Mireille shoved into her bodice, next to the knife. “I shall wait here until your return.”
Mireille crossed the street and went up the steps of the rickety stone house. She paused before the entrance, where a frayed card was tacked:
JEAN PAUL MARAT: PHYSICIAN
She took a deep breath and rapped the metal knocker against the door. The sounds echoed from the bare walls within. At last she heard shuffling footsteps approaching—the door was jerked open.
There stood a tall woman, her large, whey-colored face creased with lines. With one wrist she brushed aside a stray wisp that had pulled loose from the slovenly twist of hair. Wiping flour-covered hands on the towel tucked at her ample waist, she looked Mireille up and down, taking in the frilly dress of dotted Swiss, the beribboned bonnet, the soft curls tumbling over creamy shoulders.
“What do you want?” she snorted in disdain.
“My name is Corday. Citizen Marat expects me,” said Mireille.
“He’s ill,” snapped the woman. She started to close the door, but Mireille shoved it open, forcing her back a pace.
“I insist upon seeing him!”
“What is it, Simonne?” called another woman who’d appeared at the end of the long corridor beyond.
“A visitor, Albertine—for your brother. I’ve told her he’s ill.…”
“Citizen Marat would wish to see me,” Mireille called out, “if he knew the news I bring from Caen—and from Montglane.”
A man’s voice came through a door that was ajar halfway down the hall. “A visitor, Simonne? Bring her to me at once!”
Simonne shru
gged and motioned for Mireille to follow.
It was a large tiled room with only a small high window through which she glimpsed the red sky, bleeding to gray. The place reeked with astringent medicines and the stench of decay. In the corner sat a boot-shaped copper tub. There, in shadow broken only by the light of a single candle placed on a writing board across his knees, sat Marat. His head wrapped in a wet cloth, his pocked skin gleaming sickly white in the candle’s glow, he busied himself over the board littered with pens and papers.
Mireille’s eyes were riveted upon the man. He did not look up as Simonne ushered her into the room and gestured for her to sit on a wooden stool beside the tub. He continued writing as Mireille stared at him, her heart pounding furiously. She longed to leap at him, shove his head under the tepid water of his bath, hold him there until … But Simonne remained standing behind her shoulder.
“How well timed your arrival,” Marat was saying, still working over his papers. “I’m just preparing a list of Girondins believed to be agitating in the provinces. If you’ve come from Caen, you can confirm my list. But you say you’ve news of Montglane as well.…”
He glanced up at Mireille, and his eyes widened. He was silent for a moment, then he looked at Simonne.
“You may leave us now, my dear friend,” he told her.
Simonne did not budge for a moment, but at last, beneath Marat’s penetrating stare, she turned and left, closing the door behind her.
Mireille returned Marat’s gaze without speaking. It was odd, she thought. Here was the incarnate manifestation of evil—the man whose hideous face had haunted her tortured dreams for so long—sitting in a copper tub filled with foul-smelling salts, rotting away like a piece of rancid meat. A withered old man, dying of his own evil. She would have pitied him if there were room for pity in her heart. But there was not.