Page 14

14

CATHERINE

L éon had never run so fast in his entire life.

His body ached in every muscle with the lack of sleep and the strain of the night and the day and the burning fire of adrenaline that hadn’t let up in so long.

He pushed on and on until he stumbled back through the door of the prison, slamming a hand down on Mollard’s desk, heaving out the words, “The girl’s papers. Give them here.”

The dull mouth slopped open at the sight of a sweaty, dishevelled Léon.

“What?”

“The girl!” Léon snapped.

“The one from this morning. Give it to me.”

Mollard did it slowly, begrudgingly, every treacle-like movement seemingly designed to set Léon closer to the edge, but he finally turned back with the papers, which Léon snatched from him.

“I don’t know what you want them for,” Mollard prodded.

“It’s not like you can read.”

Léon didn’t hear him.

He was already fast at work, taking the bundle to a corner of the room, pulling émile’s note from his pocket, and searching the mess of ink for something that looked like the same letters.

The first letter of the word, he found easily, over and over as his eyes roamed the page.

He was no more schooled in the idea of reading left to right than he was in the practice of reading top to bottom, but he searched on and on, and soon found the letters there, all shaped in a bundle in perfect correspondence to émile’s.

Just then, DuPont walked in with a clap.

“There you are, Léon! I’ve been searching all over for you!”

He was taken aback at the sight of the feverish executioner, then more so again when Léon spun around, flung the papers down on the table, and yelled, “Witchcraft?”

“Ah.” Nervous eyes went to Mollard, then slid back to Léon.

DuPont stepped forward to calm him with hands on his arms. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What is this?” Léon breathed out furiously.

“She’s a girl! Just a girl! This day and age?”

“I know,” replied DuPont.

“I knew you’d be upset. Which is why—” angry eyes fell upon Mollard in reprimand “—I had wanted to tell you myself.”

“I never said a word!” Mollard spewed back.

“Then how does he know?”

Léon’s hard-beating heart slammed a note of wariness into him.

He couldn’t let them know about Henry.

The girl was mute, so she could never have told him.

“I-I read the file,” he ventured.

DuPont’s head dropped to the side in surprise, and Mollard’s eyebrows drew tight in suspicion.

“Just a few words,” he rushed out.

“But enough. I saw it and I…” He shook his head, raising a shaking hand to his temple as the turmoil built.

“Please tell me I’m wrong. Please tell me you’re not going to ask me to burn that girl.”

“No!” DuPont gasped out.

“Oh, no, no, nothing like that. Is that what you’re in a flurry about?” He tapped a comforting hand down on Léon’s shoulder and let out a laugh that was all relief.

“No, of course not. What do you think this is? We’re not barbarians.”

“Witchcraft? It doesn’t get much more barbaric than that.”

“I know.” DuPont raised his hands in resignation.

“I understand completely how it seems. But have you read what she did?” He picked the papers up and offered them back to Léon.

“Not yet,” said Léon, stepping back with a blush.

“I haven’t had time to read it all.”

“Well…” The papers were dropped back to the table.

“It’s open and shut, I’m afraid. At least, that’s how it looks from what they’ve given me. There was a boat full of witnesses.”

“Nonsense,” Léon snarled.

“Nonsense or not, the decision’s been made. Her guardian’s pursued every avenue of appeal open to them… I’m afraid it all ends here.”

“But—”

“But nothing. No one’s happy about this, least of all me. Yet justice must be done.” Léon took a breath to argue, and received DuPont’s stern, low, and confiding, “Listen to me. This is more serious than you realise. It’s important that you keep this to yourself.” He looked between Mollard and the general mess that was Léon.

“I assume you’ve just found out?”

Léon gave an uncertain nod.

“No one can know about this. Tomorrow, she goes out with the lot of them, head in the basket like the rest.”

“I can’t do that,” Léon protested.

“Why would I do that?”

A finger came up to quiet him.

“Léon, what do you think will happen if people get wind of this?”

Bright eyed, head raised, “I think they’ll come and break her out and then justice will be done.”

“Do you?” The milky blue eyes, incisive, studied him, waiting for his understanding.

“Or do you think the command will come down the line that we’re to do it anyway, and we’re to make the powers that be look good while we’re at it? Do you think it’s more likely we’ll be required to whip up a bit of religious fervour? Make an example of the girl? Turn her into a fitting spectacle for the crowds?”

Léon’s blood glugged thick in his veins at the very suggestion, a dizzy sickness coming all about him.

“Reims is following sharp on the heels of Paris. Things are changing there. We can’t afford to be seen as going against the ideals of the revolution?—”

“But you are!” Léon shouted.

“This is no enlightenment thinking! This is the very thing they’re trying to stamp out!”

“ And ,” DuPont said pointedly, “we— you and I —can’t be seen to be going against court orders right now either. We are in the system, and we work for the system, and we are loyal to whatever commands come to us. No matter who they come from, Léon.” His hand scrunched into Léon’s shoulder, and he moved his face close.

“It’s too dangerous a time to stand out. You are an arm of the law and nothing more. You’re going to kill that girl, you’re going to do it quietly without one other soul finding out what she’s in for, and you’re going to make it fast. Then we’re going to pretend it never happened, and get on with our lives.”

Léon’s breath coiled in his throat, and all his insides seemed to melt into themselves.

He searched for something to say, but found himself shoved back with the press of Catherine’s papers to his chest. “Read it all,” said DuPont.

“Read it well. I know it seems hard to believe, but she’s guilty of something. There were dozens of witnesses.”

A disbelieving laugh sounded in the back of Léon’s throat, weakly.

“Did she sign a confession?”

The man’s voice softened in response.

“No. She’s simple. She can’t write, and she can’t speak, and I’m not sure she fully understood what was going on.”

“Then surely you agree she shouldn’t be here?” he tried.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” DuPont said.

“And it doesn’t matter what you think. But I will tell you this. That simplicity, the circumstance that she can’t speak, is the only thing that saved her from torture.” Struck into tense silence, Léon listened carefully.

“Women don’t give up those confessions easily, and why would they? The pyre is waiting for them. But if this case gets attention, if they’re forced to open this up to the world at large, the court will get their confession out of her one way or the other. And it won’t be pretty.” DuPont pushed the point home.

“I knew this one would be hard for you. That’s why I wanted to talk to you about it. Believe me, the best thing you can do right now is extend her the mercy of ending it quickly.”

He scrutinised Léon’s face so intently that Léon dropped his head, but with it, Léon gave a small, hopeless nod of agreement.

“Good lad,” said DuPont.

“When you’re done reading that, come out to the square. I’ve got something to show you.”

DuPont stepped past Léon to leave, but Léon extended a hand to catch him.

“The guardian,” he said softly.

“Who are they? Shouldn’t they be here?”

“A brother,” DuPont replied.

“Very loud at the start of it all. According to that,” he pointed at the file, “he broke her out of the holding cell in Dieppe. God only knows how. No one caught up with them until they reached Rethel, making for the border, I suppose. When they found the girl again, she was alone, and no one’s seen shot of him since she arrived in Reims. Seems he’s slunk off somewhere, abandoned her.”

Léon’s chest gave an unexpected squeeze at just how incorrect that notion was.

“And her parents?”

“Couldn't be contacted. Apparently they’ve fled Paris, what with all the commotion. Nobody knows where they are.”

“But why should they flee? Are they monarchists?”

“How should I know?” replied DuPont. Fair point, Léon considered, but then DuPont concluded the conversation by adding quietly, “But from what I hear, the family would put the Queen to shame with their excesses. Probably a smart time to go on the run. If only they’d thought to take their daughter with them.”

He pressed a consoling hand into Léon’s arm on the way out, and Léon’s fingers scrunched into the bundle of papers. He’d kill to know what it all said. About the girl, about Henry, about the whole bizarre case. He flipped a few pages over, fanning them out. It was just scribble to him. He dropped the lot on Mollard’s desk with the instruction, “Keys.”

“You’ve already been in there once today,” Mollard complained, scratching the papers into a neat pile.

“You heard Bernard,” Léon snapped. “Special circumstances. Give me the keys.”

With a huff, Mollard pulled open a rattling drawer and produced the loop of keys. Moments later, Léon was back at the cell door. He opened the hatch and two sets of eyes fell upon him, one scared, one defiant. But Sophie’s face soon softened into a smile, and she leapt up, fingers on his within seconds. “What news?”

“None good,” he said with a shake of his head.

She passed a worried look back at Catherine, who watched on more openly than the last time, guarded, but with an interest in Léon inspired by, Léon presumed, Sophie’s kind words about him.

Léon looked over the balcony to see that the guards were well across the room by their warming fire, unable to hear him, then whispered, “Catherine?”

The recognition in her face made it clear that was indeed her name—that Henry hadn’t lied about it. She made no more response, only watched Léon with trepidatious curiosity.

He reached into his pocket and pulled forth the carefully concealed scarf. It took only the smallest glimpse of the rich green silk for Catherine to let out a cry and fly from the bed to Léon. “Mmm. Oh!” The utterings were cut off in a mess of tears, and Sophie looked at Léon with raised eyebrows, inasmuch to say she didn’t realise she could form those sounds at all, so silent had the girl been until that moment. But Léon gave it little thought as Catherine’s hands grasped his desperately, those big hazel eyes he knew well now begging him to speak.

He glanced darkly at Sophie and whispered, “Your complete secrecy. Please.”

Sophie gave a conspiratorial nod and leaned in close. But just as Henry’s message was about to spill from Léon’s mouth, it caught right on the edge of his lips. Henry said he would come. He said he wouldn’t let it end with her execution. But Henry had no clue he didn’t have the keys or any access to Catherine whatsoever. He had no idea it would all be over in a matter of hours. How could Léon say what he’d asked—give the girl that hope?

Catherine’s breath came fast in her excitement, her fingers gripping his painfully. He hated having to disappoint her. And she’d be dead in the morning, so what did it matter if she spent her last night hopeful?

“He’s coming,” Léon whispered. “He’s… He’s still figuring everything out, but he said to let you know… He won’t…” His heart gave out. How could he lie to her like that? DuPont’s words came back on him. Give her that one mercy . He took Sophie in with his gaze, then corrected to the brutal truth, just as gently as he could. “You two are first. Catherine, then you, Sophie. And you’ll have a blindfold. And you’ll lie down. And I’ll help. And it will be so fast?—”

An enormous tremor rattled over Catherine’s body, creeping with each of Léon’s words from her knees, through her stomach and chest and right along her arms. A curious shaking started in the groaning walls and sagging mattresses of the prison, and even the escaped straw on the floor began to heave. But both Léon and Sophie were too concerned with the girl’s fit to pay attention to another earthquake.

She would have fallen to the stone floor had Sophie not caught her in her broad arms and bundled her up tight. She pulled Catherine wholly onto her lap, and Catherine curled into her like a child. She sucked in thin breaths on a high-pitched wheeze, and “Shhhh,” said Sophie, stroking her hair. “Shhhh.”

Catherine’s long and pale fingers lifted her brother’s scarf to her face. She buried her nose in it, breathing deep. Léon wondered if she knew by feel that it contained the cake—if that was the comfort she sought—or if it was the scent of Henry. The lost touch of a loved one, her last comfort on this earth. And something inside him snapped at the thought—something primal and protective at seeing the helpless safety she sought in the touch of his silk and the smell of him, just the same way émile would twist his little fingers in Léon’s hair. What Henry must have been to her to make her hold on to that remnant of him so desperately.

“Catherine,” he said, calling up one hopelessly lost look from her. Then, in a moment of fantastic and altruistic madness, “He’s trying… I’m… He hasn’t stopped thinking of you. And…” He firmed up his voice. “He said he won’t let you go like this. He said to stay brave and keep doing what you’re doing. And I believe…” He hesitated over the words, then said what he thought, at that moment, to be true. “I believe he will come tonight. But for now…” He nodded to the scarf. “Open it.”

Her movements were slow, such overwhelm as the myriad ideas had set upon her fragile mind, but Catherine folded back the layers of the scarf to reveal the small cake, miraculously intact after its rough treatment. She ran fingers over the sticky top, pressed them together and felt the viscous texture, watched the strands of honey pull apart and break as she opened her hand again.

Then she leapt up from Sophie, wrapped her fingers over the top of Léon’s, and leaning so close her face was against his, cheek to cheek, she whispered into his ear, “ Merci .”