Hearts Beguiled (40 page)

T
he darkness was absolute. The air, so fetid and damp, had a smooth feel to it, like velvet.

She had been locked in here for a long time. Long enough to know hunger and thirst and every permutation of fear. She leaned against a stone wall that seeped with moisture. Although her legs trembled and ached with exhaustion, she didn't dare sit down, for the floor of the cell was covered with unspeakable filth. She could feel it oozing up around the soles of her feet and between her toes. She smelted the rank stink of it with every breath.

"Max, please . . ." she whispered hoarsely. Oh, God, where was he, why wasn't he coming? "Max, damn you!" she screamed, her voice bouncing hollowly off the stone walls. Then she began to cry for she knew he was only a man, not a god capable of miracles, and she hated him for being only a man and not a god, and she hated herself for hating him, when she loved him so much and it was not his fault, not his fault. . .

It was cold in the cell and she was naked. The guards had stripped her of her clothes when she was first brought here. She had been afraid from the lewd looks they gave her that she would be raped, especially when they began to paw at her—twisting her nipples painfully and thrusting their fingers inside of her. Only Louvois seemed indifferent, merely watching with those protruding, unblinking eyes.

When one of the men began to unbutton his breeches, Louvois said, "There'll be time enough for that later. I want her to think about it for a while, to imagine how it will be." He lifted a long, slack hand and stroked Gabrielle's cheek with one finger. "There are thirty-two guards here at the Bastille, my dear, and every man of them will have you, and more than once, before you leave these walls. What will your haughty, titled husband think of you then, I wonder?"

Gabrielle spat in his face. Louvois stood perfectly still for a moment, letting the spittle dribble down his cheek, then he raised his arm and backhanded her with such force that he sent her reeling against the wall.

He grabbed her chin between two fingers and twisted her head around. "Gabrielle, Gabrielle . . . before I am through with you, you will be begging me for death."

Gabrielle stared back at him unflinchingly, although tears of pain from the blow filmed her eyes. "And you, Louvois, are a dead man already. The vicomte de Saint-Just will kill you merely for presuming to lay your filthy hands on me."

He blinked then and fear flickered in his eyes. Then he smiled, releasing his painful grip on her chin. "But he doesn't know I have you. No doubt he will merely assume you have disappeared again."

Black despair welled up inside Gabrielle, almost choking her. Of course Max would believe she had run away, left him again, and her heart ached for the hurt he would feel. He had allowed himself to love her again; he had trusted her with his heart. What would he think, what would he feel, when he came home from Versailles to find her and Dominique gone?

"Still, if the thought of my death gives you comfort," Louvois was saying, sounding almost cheerful, "then you're welcome to it. You will need some comfort, however meager, in the coming weeks and months and years."

Gabrielle flung up her head and hatred blazed from her face. "Where's my son, you bastard? What have you done with my son?"

Louvois's smile froze her heart. "You'll find out soon enough."

Dominique had been taken from her while they were still beside the carriage in the courtyard. She kept telling herself that no one would be so fiendish as to subject a child to a filthy, dark cell with no food or water. She screamed his name though, long after her own cell door had banged shut leaving her alone with the darkness. She screamed until she was hoarse.

She had heard only silence, and the thin echo of her own voice. Then within the last hour, she thought she heard something else—a deep rumbling sound far in the distance, like thunder.

She was so thirsty. She pressed her mouth against the wall, and the dampness helped a very little bit to relieve her parched tongue. Strange lights began to dance before her eyes and her head whirled. She dug her nails into her arms, deep enough to draw blood, hoping the pain would keep her from fainting.

The cell door banged open and she flung up her arm to shield her eyes from the sudden flare of a bright light. With the door open she could hear the thunder rumbling again, much louder now.

She blinked several times, until her eyes became adjusted to the light. Louvois stood in the middle of the cell, and four guards with him. Two of them carried torches which they stuck into brackets on the walls. Another guard carried a stool and chains, while a fourth had some sort of animal horn and two large buckets of water.

They're going to torture me, she thought. But, strangely, she felt no fear. She didn't really believe this was going to happen. Not to her.

But it was happening.

The guard set the stool and chains down in the middle of the cell, while two others grabbed her arms and dragged her roughly forward. She struggled, kicking and jabbing with her elbows, until one of them punched her hard in the stomach. She choked back sobs of pain as she was bent backward over the stool and her wrists and ankles were chained to each of the stool's four legs. Now fear, sudden and engulfing, overwhelmed her.

Max! her mind cried out. Save me from this. God help me. Max, Max, Max . . .

Louvois's face loomed over her. "Did you know, Gabrielle?" he said in a strangely conversational tone of voice. "Everyone doomed to execution is tortured in this way before he goes to his appointment with death in the Place de la Greve. This isn't designed to kill, but only to cause suffering. To punish."

Gabrielle thought of Louvois's promise to make her beg for death. To her bitter shame, she already wanted to plead with him not to hurt her. But she knew by the way he looked at her that he had no intention of sparing her what was to come. Pride was all she had left now, and pride held her silent.

Louvois's face disappeared. A rough hand clamped down over her nose, and her jaws were pried open. The animal horn was shoved into her mouth, down her throat. She watched with terror as the bucket was tilted above her head and the water was poured into the horn.

She couldn't swallow fast enough and she began to choke and gag and gasp for air. Her chest burned as the water poured into her lungs. Her stomach, stretched and distended over the stool, began to swell. She felt engorged, bursting; the pain was excruciating, and she was going to explode, die. She wanted to die, to escape the terrible, terrifying pressure, the pain, which grew and grew and grew until she was screaming inside her head, she was drowning, suffocating, dying, and the pain, the pain went on and on and on—

When she came to her senses she was on her hands and knees in a puddle of water on the floor. She sucked in a painful gasp of air, heaving, and water came gushing out of her throat in a torrent. She choked, gagged, and vomited until she lay exhausted on her side, clutching her stomach. Her chest felt on fire, her throat flayed raw.

Something scraped against the stone next to her ear and she opened her eyes to see a pair of black, scruffy shoes.

"Did that hurt, Gabrielle?"

"Please," she said and the single word felt as if needles were being driven into her throat. She would beg him now; she knew she couldn't bear that again.

"Next you will watch me do it to the boy."

"No!" she cried out hoarsely. More water erupted from her throat and she choked on it, almost strangling.

"Are you going to beg me now, Gabrielle?"

"Yes . . . I'll beg. Please . . .please, don't hurt my son." She clutched his ankles and looked up at him through the wet streams of her hair. She tried a pathetic smile. "I'll give myself to you, Monsieur Louvois. I'll go away with you, wherever you like, willingly, and Monsieur le Duc can have his grandson. Only please, please don't hurt him."

He lifted his foot and, planting it on her chest, thrust her onto her back. She lay sprawled at his feet, and he let his eyes roam contemptuously over her naked body. Her flaming hair was wet and matted with filth, her violet eyes black, bruised holes in her faces. He doubted anyone would think her beautiful now.

"All women are whores and you're no different," he said with a sneer. "I've never wanted your disgusting whore's body. It's your pride I want to own, Gabrielle. Your soul." He touched the scar on his cheek, and his bulging eyes seemed to glow unnaturally. "Your son, on the other hand, is beautiful. Very beautiful. Normally I prefer them a couple of years older, but he is tempting, yes tempting indeed."

Gabrielle's stomach heaved at the filth that was spewing from Louvois's mouth. God, God, God, she prayed. This wasn't happening. He was only trying to frighten her. He couldn't, wouldn't, no one could be that depraved. Virgin Mary, Mother of God, protect and save my son . . .

She pushed herself up on her elbows, clawing with her nails on the filthy stone floor for a purchase. She would kill Louvois. Kill him with her bare hands—

The cell door banged open and Louvois whipped around, backing out of her reach. Dizziness engulfed her, and a strange, milky fog clouded her vision.

Her muscles turned liquid and she slumped slowly to the floor, her cheek pressing against the cold, wet stone. She heard the thunder again, and voices above her head speaking plainly, but she could see nothing but the cool white mist.

"What the devil is going on?" Louvois snarled.

"The mob is storming the Bastille!"

"How the hell can they storm the Bastille? This is a bloody fortress. It's supposed to be impregnable."

"They've got cannon. I'm going to surrender."

"You can't!"

"I'm the commander here, monsieur. It's my decision."

Louvois ground out another oath. Gabrielle heard boots clumping across the floor and the creak of the cell door swinging shut.

"Dominique ..." Gabrielle cried out weakly.

Then the darkness returned.

❧

Early that morning of the fourteenth of July, the Vicomte Maximilien de Saint-Just had awakened bleary-eyed and groggy after a miserable night of little sleep and strange, feverish dreams.

With the twelve hundred deputies of the National Assembly meeting daily, the small city of Versailles had been hard pressed to handle the sudden influx to its population. Max, who was being hailed at the moment as one of the heroes of the revolution, had managed to appropriate a tiny flea-infested garret. At least he had it to himself, and he knew he was better off than most.

It was not the fleas, however, that had kept him awake last night. He had felt vaguely uneasy all during the evening before. The meetings had gone on until well past one o'clock, and several times he caught himself staring into space, having lost track of what was going on for long minutes at a time. Something was wrong; he just didn't know what it was.

When he finally fell into his bed that night, he was tormented over and over by the same dream. He would see Gabrielle running across a field toward the edge of a cliff. She was being pursued by something, but he could never see what it was. He would call out to her, warning her of the cliff, and then he would begin to run after her, to save her. But always he would be just a couple of steps too late. He would lunge, his hand outstretched, and catch just the tip of her cloak. But she would be gone, over the edge into a strange, black void, and he would wake up drenched in sweat, his chest heaving like a pair of bellows.

A bare hour after dawn that morning Max was on the road to Paris. He wanted to see Gabrielle with his own eyes and know she was all right.

The streets when he first entered the city seemed eerily deserted. The damp, still air was filled with an acrid smoke; the sky was the color of pewter, threatening more rain. He had just turned onto the Quai d'Orsay when a mass of men, armed with pikes and staves, spilled out of one of the cross streets, coming toward him. They were chanting, "We want gunpowder!" and "To the Bastille!" Max jerked his horse's head hard around and headed back over the bridge. The last thing he wanted was to get caught up in the mob.

As he galloped through the streets, Max felt fear grow within him with every sparking strike of his horse's hooves on the cobblestones. By the time he turned onto the Rue de Lille, he was almost frantic with worry. He leaped from his horse, flinging the reins at a groom, and raced up the steps to the hotel two at time. The door swung open beneath his hand and he looked up into Aumont's dumbstruck face.

"Monsieur!" the majordomo exclaimed. "We were told you were stricken ill. Madame and le petit left for Versailles yesterday evening."

Max felt a piece of himself break off and die.

❧

Simon Prion, with his wife's angry admonitions ringing in his ears, had set off that morning to join a demonstration in search of gunpower to be distributed to the people. The king, it was said, was sending mercenary troops to surround Paris and slaughter his subjects. His subjects wanted to be prepared.

They went first to Les Invalides, the veterans' hospital, where rumor had it a huge cache of gunpowder was stored. They found a couple of muskets and a few old swords, but nothing else. Then someone said there was gunpowder at the Bastille,

. "To the Bastille!" an old woman shouted, and the crowd begin to take up the chant, Simon's voice carrying loud and strong among them. "To the Bastille!"

They picked up more people along the way. But as they came within sight of the massive blackened stone quadrangle with its eight round towers, as tall as a seven-story building, the seething mass of chanting rioters suddenly quieted, until the only thing Simon could hear was the whining cry of a child and the rustling shuffle of hundreds of feet.

This, Simon Prion thought as he stared at the fortress, this is the invincible Bastille. His chest ached with the awe of it. The Bastille. The symbol of arbitrary power, where people were sent without knowing why or for how long, on a simple order of the king. Suddenly he no longer cared about the gunpowder; it was the Bastille he wanted. If the Bastille could be taken, destroyed, then the people of Paris would have wrested their freedom from the monarchy. They would have liberty.

Simon looked around him. He was at the very forefront of the crowd, pressed against the shuttered entrance to a perfumer's shop that was tucked right up against one of the fortress's mighty outer ramparts. The varied floral and spicy scents emanating from the shop filled Simon's head, making him feel slightly drunk. He saw a drainpipe and used k to pull himself up onto the awning over the door, climbing from there onto the roof.

"Down with the Bastille!" he shouted, and his voice boomed out over the silent crowd.

"We want the Bastille!" someone shouted back at him, and then everyone was shouting, waving their pikes and cudgels in the air.

A man with a massive belly and arms shaped like hams climbed onto the roof next to Simon. He grinned, showing a gap of missing front teeth. "To the Bastille," he said, and then jumped from the roof into the outside courtyard below. Simon looked down, muttered a prayer, and jumped after him.

They were followed by others, armed with axes and maces, who severed the drawbridge chains. With a mighty groan, the drawbridge crashed down, spanning the moat, and the rioters began to swarm across. Within seconds the gates to the fortress were hacked open and the mob streamed into the outer courtyard.

The guards on the towers opened fire.