Drake Chronicles: 02 Blood Feud (13 page)

“Do you know what this means, Isabeau?”

She shook her head mutely.

“It means none of us is safe.” He wrapped a thick cloak around her shoulders. “Here, keep this on. It’s cold outside.” She tied the ribbons together tightly. “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to my brother’s house in London.”

“England?” she repeated. Her mother wept harder, choking on her sobs. “But you haven’t spoken to him in years.” She was interrupted by the shattering of broken glass coming from the front of the château. She whirled toward the sound. Her mother leaped to her feet, her hand clasped over her trembling mouth. Her father tensed. “
Merde.

“There’s no time.” His eyes were determined, sharp as they found hers. “Isabeau, I need you to hide. Go with Martine, take your mother. You remember the broken stone I showed you?” Isabeau nodded, her heart racing so fast it made her sick to her stomach.

“Pul it out and crawl inside. The passageway wil take you out into the woods, by the lavender fields.” More glass broke, and something hard thudded against the locked front door. She could hear shouting, faintly. “Do you understand, Isabeau?” She forced herself to look at him. “
Oui, Papa
.” She understood perfectly wel . She was sixteen years old and better equipped to protect them than her fragile mother.

“Then go! Go now!”

“
Non
,” Amandine shrieked, clutching his arm so tightly the fabric of his shirt tore under her frantic nails. The door splintered with such a loud sharp crack that it echoed throughout the château. Martine’s face was wild as she grabbed Isabeau’s shoulder.

“We have to go.”

Footsteps crashed toward them. The mob shouted, knocked paintings off the wal , howled with hunger and frustration. The golden candlesticks in the hal way could have bought a winter’s worth of food for an entire family. Never mind that there was scarcely any food to be had, bought or otherwise. January frost covered the fields and the orchards, and the summer crops had been thinner than usual due to weather and political upheaval.

Jean-Paul tried to tear Amandine’s hand off him, to shove her toward Isabeau for safekeeping, but his wife was wild with terror and would not move. He wouldn’t let her save him and he couldn’t risk their daughter. They couldn’t al get away, they’d be chased through the countryside, found.

“
Cherie,
please,” he begged his wife. “Please, you have to go.”

The mob was nearly on them. There was no time, no options left. He threw Martine a desperate glance. “Take Isabeau.”

“
Papa, non
! We’l al go!” Isabeau struggled to convince him even as her mother fel completely apart in his arms.

Angry vil agers poured into the kitchen in search of food, leaving a few others to vandalize and loot what they could.

“The duke!” a woman with gray hair shouted. She was so thin her ribs were visible beneath her threadbare chemise.

Someone howled, more animal than human. The flames from a torch leaped to a tablecloth, catching instantly. The smel of burning fabric mixed with burning pine pitch.

Martine yanked Isabeau backward and out into the dark predawn kitchen garden before she could struggle. They landed in the basil, crushing the dried shrubs under them as they rol ed to the shadows under the decorative stone wal .

“
Vien.
” Martine tugged on her hand. “
Je vous en prie
.”

“My parents,” Isabeau said through the tears clogging her throat. “We have to help them.”

“It’s too late for them.”

“
Non.
” But she could hear the shouting, the tearing of hands through the barrels of salted meats and baskets of dried apples. She could hear her mother’s strange yelping, like a terrified cat, and her father’s cursing as he struggled to shield her.

“Your father would never forgive either of us if we didn’t get you to safety,” Martine told her quietly, urgently. Isabeau knew she was right. Martine took advantage of her stunned pause to pul her off balance and drag her running into the edge of the woods. Torchlight gleamed from the kitchen window as more of the cloth caught fire. Smoke bil owed out of the open door.

She watched her parents from the tal cradle of an oak tree.

The mob dragged them to a farm cart and lashed them to the sides. Isabeau’s father stared straight ahead, refusing to search for his daughter lest he give her away. Isabeau knew somehow that he could feel her there, up a tree, stuffing her fist in her mouth to keep from screaming out loud. Martine clung to the trunk beside her, her face wet with silent tears. The cart rol ed away.

“I’l go to Paris,” Isabeau swore. “And I’l find a way to save them.”

•

Isabeau waited until Martine was asleep before making her escape. They’d found an abandoned shepherd’s hut; the wooden slats were pul ing apart under the wind and there was snow in the corners, but it was better than the exposed January night. They risked a tiny fire, barely enough to warm their toes in their sturdy boots. Isabeau drew her knees up to her chest and let her thick cloak fal around her like a tent. She closed her eyes and pretended to drift off until she heard Martine snoring softly. She was shivering lightly and the gray in her hair seemed more pronounced, the lines around her eyes deeper. Isabeau couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her behind, but she couldn’t expect her old nursemaid to go with her.

Paris was a death trap.

But there was no possible way she could go anywhere else.

Her parents were being dragged there even now. They would be paraded through the streets, condemned of some royalist crime, and executed.

She had to stop it.

And Martine would have to try and stop her.

So it was best al around if she left now, before it was even harder. Her eyes felt gritty and swol en, her stomach was on fire with nerves, but underneath it al she knew she was doing the right thing. She left Martine most of the coins her father had sewn into her cloak, keeping only enough to see her to the city.

Martine would need it more than she did. She’d have to find passage to England or Spain, or a vil ager to take her in.

Perhaps someone would marry her. She was plump and pretty and dedicated; she deserved to be loved and taken care of the way she’d taken care of Isabeau her entire life. It should have been Isabeau’s job to find her nursemaid a new position, a new family to live with; or else beg her parents to keep her on until she was married and had babies of her own. None of that was likely now. Marriage was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind.

The king was dead, Marie Antoinette was imprisoned, and most of the aristocracy had been murdered or fled to make cream sauces and pastries for the English.

Isabeau was sixteen years old, and she was clever and resourceful and she would do whatever needed to be done.

She would free her parents and then find a ship to take them She would free her parents and then find a ship to take them somewhere, anywhere.

She pushed the door open, wincing at the cold wind that snaked inside, fluttering the last of the fire. Martine moaned and shifted uncomfortably. Isabeau shut the door quickly and waited pressed against the other side, listening for the sound of Martine’s voice.

Satisfied that her nursemaid hadn’t woken up, Isabeau crept away from the hut. The night was especial y dark without a moon to light her way. She was alone in the frosty silence with only a light dusting of snow for company. She walked as fast as her cold feet would let her, stumbling over twigs, keeping to the forest on the edge of the road.

She walked the entire night and didn’t stop even when dawn leaked through the clouds. Her feet and her calves ached and she wasn’t convinced she’d ever get the feeling back in the tip of her nose. She kept walking through the pain, through the cold wind and the growling emptiness in her bel y. She hid in the bushes when she heard the sound of wagon wheels, not trusting anyone enough to beg a lift on the back of a cart. She might blend with her wool cloak and simple gray dress, but she knew her accent was too cultured, too obviously aristocratic, and that alone might make her a target.

The closer she got to Paris, the more clogged the road became, mostly with people fleeing to the countryside. Only radicals and adventurers and madmen went toward the city these days. She pul ed her hood over her hair and lowered her eyes, keeping to the trees. Eventual y they thinned to ragged bushes and then to fields and then she was on the outskirts of the city and everything was cobblestones and gray roofs in the winter sunlight. She’d been walking for three days with very little sleep and only frozen creek water to melt and drink. Her head swam and she felt as if she had a fever: everything was too bright or too dul , too sharp or too soft.

She stopped long enough to buy a meal and a cup of strong coffee to fortify herself. She huddled in her cloak, trying not to stare at everyone and everything. Smal er houses crowded together gave way to buildings, towering high and made of stone the color of butter. The river Seine meandered through the city, past the Tuileries, where the king had once lived, before they’d cut off his head. Isabeau shivered. She couldn’t think of it right now. If she gave in to the grief and the fear she might never move again.

She forced herself to her feet and fol owed the river. The water churned under a thick, broken layer of ice. She rubbed her hands together to warm them, being careful not to catch anyone’s eye. Men swaggered in groups drinking coffee and distributing pamphlets while women with cockades pinned to their bonnets stood on the corners talking. Their faces were serious, fired with purpose. Isabeau could smel smoke lingering and saw piles of burned garbage from riots and the fighting that took over the streets at night. She’d heard her father speak of it more and more, especial y last autumn, when so many had been massacred.

She’d heard the guil otine had been set up in one of the city squares but she didn’t know where it was. Her parents hadn’t squares but she didn’t know where it was. Her parents hadn’t been to their Paris house since the Christmas she was eleven.

She remembered passing the opera house in the carriage and the snow fal ing in the streets. She could walk in circles and never find her way.

She final y noticed that the crowds seemed to be heading in the same direction. She paused behind a group of women with chapped hands, smoking under an unlit streetlight. Taking her courage in both hands she approached them slowly.

“
Pardon, madame
?”

One of the women whipped her head around to glare.

“
Citoyenne
,” she corrected darkly.

Isabeau swal owed. “
Pardon, citoyenne
. Could you tel me how to find La Place de la Concorde?”

The woman nodded. “Visiting
la louisette
, are you?” When Isabeau looked at her blankly she elaborated. “The guil otine.”

“Oh. Um, yes.”

“Not from here, are you?”

Isabeau backed away a step, wondering if she should dart into the safety of the maze of al eyways. “Yes, I am.” The woman shook her head, not unkindly. “Down this street and turn right.”

“Thank you.”

“If you hurry, you’l catch the last execution. Just fol ow the crowds and the noise. Robespierre got himself a fat duke and duchess.” Her companions nodded smugly. One of them spat in the gutter.

Isabeau’s stomach dropped like a stone. She broke into a run, dodging cafe tables and barking dogs and carts trundling slowly in the street. She could hear a loud cheer from several streets over, even with the pounding of her pulse in her ears.

The cobblestones were slicked with ice and she slipped, crashing into a pil ar of a large building. She pushed herself up, looking wildly about. Al the buildings looked the same, stone and tal windows, pil ars and pavement. She gagged on her frantic breath. Another cheer sounded, louder this time. She ran again, fol owing.

She made it into the cacophony of the square just as the guil otine fel , the blade gleaming in the sun. There was a pause of silence and then more shouts. The ground seemed to shake with al the noise and stamping feet. The pressure of the noise made her nauseous. She’d never seen so many people in her life. There were guards with bayonets, hundreds of
citoyens
and
citoyennes
, children, urchins and pickpockets, and rouge-cheeked prostitutes.

Isabeau pushed through the crowd, heedless of the feet she stepped on or the bored curses flung her way. She struggled against the wal of people toward the dais in the center of the square. It was warm with so many bodies and the fires lit in braziers. At the very front, sitting in a row by the tal strange machine that was the guil otine were the
tricoteuses
, the women who sat and knit as the heads fel in the basket in front of them.

If they sat too close, blood splattered them. They’d long ago figured out the exact perfect distance. Isabeau could hear their needles clicking as she pushed between them.

Just in time for the blade to drop a second time.

Her father’s head rol ed into a large basket, landing lip to lip with the decapitated head of her mother. Their long hair tangled together. Blood seeped through the wicker, stained the wood of the dais.

Isabeau’s shrieks were drowned out by the enthusiastic spectators. She screamed herself hoarse and then felt herself fal ing and didn’t even try to stop her head from cracking on the cold cobblestones.