Down: Pinhole (27 page)

Forneau unbolted one of the doors and gestured for John to enter. He instructed the guards to wait in the hall and joined John inside. The room was large and comfortably appointed with a bed, a braided rug, a bureau, wash basin, chamber pot and a padded arm chair. There was a cold fireplace with a small stack of wood. A pair of windows overlooked the Seine. There was a platter of cheese, a loaf of bread, and a jug of wine.

“Will this do?” Forneau asked.

“I don’t appreciate being held against my will.”

“The king has ordered it.”

“How’d Max become a king anyway?”

“I believe you are not showing him the appropriate respect. A rebellious attitude will not best serve you.” Forneau sat on the chair and John sniffed at the cheese.

“No knife.”

Forneau reached for his belt and offered one.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll cut your throat?”

“The guards would deal with you harshly. I wonder if a living man could die in Hell?”

John took the knife, sliced the cheese and cut the bread. “I’m trying to avoid finding out. Want some?”

Forneau declined and John sat on the bed to eat.

“I have been told that when Robespierre arrived, the king of the day, Louis XI, an ancient monarch who reigned on Earth in the fifteenth century, was taken by his ruthless efficiency. He rose to be Louis’s principal minister and within several decades he engineered a coup d’état and seized the crown for himself. It is said he had a guillotine made to his own specifications and Louis was its first subject. You see the irony, of course. In life he topples a king, in death he becomes one.”

“How come he trusts you? Isn’t he afraid you’re going to do the same thing to him?”

“The answer is simple. He does not trust me. He is suspicious of everyone. His food is tasted. His personal guards are treated like princes to buy their loyalty. He knows I am not ambitious and that alone has kept me from the guillotine.”

Forneau rose and said he had business to attend to.

“My knife, please.”

John had palmed it and was now sitting on it. He fished it out and presented it, handle first.

Forneau pursed his plump lips. “On second thought, keep it. I will have the physician come to examine your head wound.”

Alone, John stashed the knife under the pillow and wondered what Forneau’s gesture meant. Was he going to help him? Was he hoping he’d use it on the king? He tried the door and peered through the windows. Even if he broke the panes of leaded glass and squeezed through, there was a fatally steep drop down to the river bank. The Paris that he could see was low and sprawling, a charcoal sketch of a city, devoid of color. He helped himself to more food and reclined on the bed. After a while the bolt slid open and a heavyset man appeared carrying a small leather bag. He was huffing and puffing from his stair climbing.

“Excuse me,” the man said. “My English is not excellent. I am Doctor Lefebvre. Monsieur Forneau asked me to see your head.”

“I don’t think it’s serious,” John said, throwing his feet over the side of the bed.

The doctor sat beside him and John wondered if the bed would take his prodigious weight.

“How remarkable. To see a living man again,” the doctor said while using his pudgy fingers to poke and prod the tender lump on his crown. Then he put him through a rudimentary neurological exam and declared him to be free of serious malady.

“If I had a problem, is there anything you could have done about it?”

“I was not a surgeon so if you had a hemorrhage I could not help you. I have some simple medicines, naturalistic therapies, nothing very strong. I am a doctor in name only, I am afraid. The king likes to have a doctor at his side, especially a modern one, so I am at his service. I humor him mostly and in return, I am fed and sheltered.”

“Got anything for a toothache?”

The doctor had a look inside his mouth by candlelight and said, “I can give you a vial of oil of cloves. It might provide some comfort.”

“That would be much appreciated. How long have you been here?”

“Some eighteen years. I poisoned a man who was blackmailing me over a sordid affair. I was caught by the police and upon my arrest suffered a fatal heart attack.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Want some wine? Food?”

The doctor didn’t take any prodding to tuck into the bread and cheese and while he ate, John explained his own circumstances.

When he had answered all of Lefebvre’s questions, he turned the tables and asked a few of his own.

“As a medical man, how do you explain that you can’t die here?”

“I cannot explain this,” the doctor said, ripping off another piece of bread. “The laws of nature are different in Hell. The aging process, it ceases. I have not seen cancers or heart attacks. People keep to the same physiologic age indefinitely. There are injuries, yes, and infections, and some maladies like the venous thrombosis that affects the king, but I have seen men who claim they are many hundreds of years old, much older than the king, for example. And I have seen many, many men with catastrophes who should be dead but do not die. It is as if the beautiful laws of nature were canceled and re-written by a sadistic fiend to ensure there is no escape for the likes of us. Now I must go. The king likes to torment me by saying if I do not come quickly when he calls he will use my body fat to light his lamps.”

Alone, John stripped down to his shorts and lay back down. He had just drifted off when he heard the bolt slide again. He blinked himself into alertness and was expecting to see the doctor returning for more food or discourse but when the door opened it was Robespierre’s woman who came through. The bolt slid shut behind her, telling him that her presence was not completely hidden, at least from the guards. She stroked her black hair away from her eyes and just stood there, studying his lean body, waiting for him to say something.

He broke the silence. “Would you like some wine?”

She spoke English with a heavy Russian accent. “Yes. Wine is only thing to sustain me.”

“I hear you. I used to have a similar relationship with booze.”

“Booze?”

“Drink. Alcoholic beverages.”

“Ah. May I sit?”

She took the chair. He handed her a full cup and retreated to the bed. He thought about dressing but decided to wing it.

“What’s your name?”

“Irina.”

“So how did you get to be Max’s woman, Irina?”

She laughed. “No one but you ever had this courage to call him Max. Max’s woman. This is good way to descibe me. I have no title. I am not queen. He fuck me sometimes, not so often for last many years. He terrible lover and his breath smell like swamp. Mostly I am trophy to show people of Francia that he powerful man to have pretty woman. He buy me from Russian duke for lot of money.”

“How long have you been here?”

“In Hell? I lose count. Maybe hundred fifty years.”

“Does Max know you're visiting me?”

“No. I bribe guards to keep quiet. Maybe they talk and I get head chopped off. I don’t care.”

“Really?”

“No, I do care. Rotting room scares me. But it is worth the risk to be with good man.”

“How do you know I’m good?”

“Because you not in Hell for die. And you seem good to me.” She got up and walked toward the bed. “And you smell good.”

When she sat on the bed John smiled at her and said, “Can I tell you something about me, Irina?”

“Yes.”

“I was a soldier most of my adult life and soldiers live with death around the corner. I think I used that as an excuse to be an asshole to a lot of people, especially the women I was involved with. You know what asshole means?”

“I think is clear.”

“So I drank too much and I treated my women badly. I cheated on them and I lied to them. But all that changed with a woman named Emily.”

Maybe she wasn’t understanding where his story was going or maybe she didn’t care. She put her hand on his knee. “Tell me about Emily.”

He let it stay put. “Emily is a remarkable woman. She’s Scottish. She’s a scientist. She’s tough. She’s funny. She’s also very beautiful.”

“I am beautiful too, no?”

“Yes you are. You’re a beautiful woman. But here’s the thing. Emily changed me. I’m trying not to be an asshole anymore, at least not as big a one. I’m trying to be faithful, which for me is as hard as a dog walking past a juicy bone. She’s the reason I’m here. I’m trying to find her and I’m trying to bring her home, back to our time and our place. Can you understand that? It’s not that I don’t want you, Irina. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

She pouted her lips. “I understand. It is not like here where men fuck everything like dog in heat. Is nice. Not for me but nice. Can I just lie next to you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She lay beside him and nuzzled his neck. Her breathing became heavy, her breasts, full and heaving, and he saw her hike up her dress to touch herself. He wasn’t immune. He felt himself getting hard and he began playing a mind game along the lines of, was it really cheating to sleep with a dead woman? But he snapped out of it and kept his hands to himself. Irina seemed to lose herself. Her eyes closed, she kept licking and kissing his neck while her hips rocked up and down and the bed creaked to her rhythms. She came in an explosion of kissing and writhing and only then did her body become still.

After a while, she opened her eyes, sighed and pulled her dress down. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you had a little escape,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

“Yes. It was escape. Can I come back?”

“I can’t stay here, Irina.”

“The king, he will not let you leave.”

“Can you help me escape?”

“I would go to guillotine. I am sorry.”

“It’s okay. Yes, you can come back.”

John spent the rest of the day pacing the room like a caged tiger and applying the soothing oil of cloves the doctor had delivered. He watched the city fade into darkness and drank the rest of the wine until he had a good buzz going. He flopped on the bed and napped again and when he awoke the room was black. At first he thought he had awoken because his mouth was dry and wooly but then he realized the door was opening. Someone was holding a candle. He grabbed for the knife under the pillow.

“Shhh. It is I, Forneau.”

Forneau closed the door and put the candle on a table. He looked to pour some wine and chuckled when he saw it was all gone.

“I hear you refused to fornicate with Irina.”

John laughed at the choice of words. It sounded like something out of a biology textbook. “She told you that?”

“No, she told one of her maids who told me. I try to know everything at court.”

“Why did you leave me your knife?”

“As a signal.”

“A signal of what?”

“Of my intentions.”

“My intention is to get out of here.”

“Perhaps I can help.”

“Why would you help me?”

“The men you traveled with from Brittania. They serve an Italian.”

“So they say.”

“What if I were to tell you I serve that man also?”

“I’d say that I was pleased to hear that. You’ve met him?”

“I have, only on one occasion but that was enough to change my way of thinking.”

“Go on …”

“And what if I were to tell you that your friends have stolen one of the king’s motor cars and are waiting for you nearby?”

John was already dressing. “I’d be pleased to hear that too.”

“We must make haste.”

“What about the guards? Are they outside?”

“They are. That is what the knife is for.”

“I don’t like to kill innocent men.”

“No one here is innocent and you will not be killing them.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Use the knife or stay here. That is your choice. I cannot intervene further or my role will be discovered.”

John nodded and picked the knife off the bed. Forneau took the candle and announced through the door to the guards that he was ready to leave.

John followed right behind him and as soon as he was past the threshhold, he pushed the blade deep into one soldier’s throat and stomped down hard onto the soft boot of the other one. The second guard instinctively bent at the waist at the crunching pain and John thrust the knife into his belly, angling the blade toward the liver. In five seconds, it was done.

“I am impressed,” Forneau said, looking down at the exsanguinating bodies.

“I’m not proud of it,” John said.

“Well put. I believe our Italian friend will like you, monsieur.”

John followed Forneau down dimly lit corridors and dark staircases, through parts of the castle that seemed little used. Finally they arrived at a small, bolted door in a damp room reeking of the organic smells of the Seine. Forneau unbolted it and told John to proceed along the river until he got to a bridge. To avoid the guard post he would have to climb up one of the footings and crawl along the bridge to avoid detection. Once across his friends were waiting on the first lane to the right. He didn’t expect anyone to be out at this hour but if he was wrong, he had no doubt that John would be able to dispatch them. Lastly he handed John a cloth bag he had been carrying. Inside were John’s pistol and shot and his pocket watch.

John shook his hand in thanks. “Are you going to be all right?”

“My investigation will show that the guards foolishly opened the door and paid the price. In their state they will not be able to give evidence to the contrary.”

“Will Irina be all right?”

“Will any of us be all right?”

“Can I ask you for one more favor?” John asked. “Off the coast, at Calais, there’s a galleon at anchor, the
Hellfire
, commanded by an Englishman, a Captain Hawes. He’s a friend. He was going to wait for me for several days but it’s going to take much longer. Could you get a message to him that I’m going to be delayed?”

“How long would you ask him to linger?”

“I wish I could say. Another week? Two weeks? As long as he’s able, but I’ll understand if he has to sail on.”

“I will have this message delivered. Fare thee well, monsieur.”

John had no trouble getting to the bridge and climbing its structure. He heard the voices of palace guards a short distance away and crawled on his belly until he was halfway across the bridge and fully shrouded in darkness. The streets were deserted. Just as Forneau had said, Simon, Luca, and Antonio were waiting beside a large, closed-top automobile and when they saw him, Simon jumped in and began furiously hand-pumping the boiler.