Sovay (27 page)

Your servant,

Graham Oldfield

Treason. Sovay and Hugh looked at each other. There could be no turning back now. A woman’s punishment for treason was to be burnt at the stake.

Sovay watched the coast grow smaller and then fade altogether as the half-light brightened to morning. She did not know what fate awaited her, or when, if ever, she would see her native land again. She was condemned to perpetual exile, unless she could clear her name.

The day was fair. The ketch Virgil Barrett had found for them was disguised as a fishing boat to fool the Naval patrols. It was fast and light in the water and they soon lost sight of land altogether. Out in the Channel the waves were edged with white, as if they brought with them the memory of distant storms. Hugh soon retired below, feeling unwell, but Sovay stayed on deck, undeterred by the occasional shower of drenching spray. Virgil was sailing the vessel himself, with the help of the men who had accompanied him from Dover and two local men from Rye who were smugglers by trade and were well used to the local channels and tides and had experience of running the Naval blockade.

Virgil came to join her once they were well out to sea. Sovay expressed her admiration for his skill with jib and sail.

‘I learnt as a boy. My uncle was a commander in the United States Navy. I saw action with him in the War of Independence.’ He gave an ironic grin. ‘Of course, to your Navy, we were all buccaneers.’

‘I did not know that you had been a buccaneer! You are full of surprises, Mr Barrett.’ Sovay smiled. ‘You don’t look the least like one.’

‘Good,’ Virgil smiled. ‘The key to safety is authentic disguise. Let us hope the principle applies here and the Navy take us as a fishing vessel.’

‘What are you really carrying?’ Sovay asked.

‘Weapons. Guns and shot for the people’s army. And food. Wheat, flour, butter, cheeses. The Republic is in dire need of these things. A few luxuries: soap, candles, cocoa, sugar and coffee . . .’

‘Sugar and coffee?’ Sovay was surprised that he would take such risks for what sounded like Mrs Crombie’s shopping list.

‘Oh, I have a very special customer,’ he smiled. ‘Someone I must keep sweet.’

Suddenly, Virgil was called by the lookout.

‘There’s a Naval vessel, on the horizon,’ he said when he came back. ‘Looks like a sixth-rate frigate. Small by their standards, but far overmatching us. We’ll have to make a run for the French coast. You better go below.’

Hugh was beyond caring what was happening, or what it could mean for him. Sovay lay in the bunk opposite and clung on to the rope above her head as she was flung about by the violent movement of the ship. Through the rush of water and groan of wood came the muffled boom of cannon fire. Sovay listened intently, trying to work out the distance. Each crash and splash seemed nearer. The hull shook with the vibration and water cascaded down through the hatch. Finally, Sovay closed her eyes, convinced that, at any second, she would be blown to pieces, or thrown violently into the water as the ship disintegrated about her.

At last the vessel slowed and righted itself. Sovay opened her eyes to find Virgil smiling down at her, his fair hair wet and tangled, his face flushed, his blue-grey eyes still alight with the excitement of the chase.

‘It was a bit of a close-run thing, but we lost them eventually. Come!’ He held out his hands to help her from the bunk. ‘Come up on deck.’

Sovay followed him for her first view of France. The coast sliding by them was not markedly different from the one that they had left behind them: the rise and fall of the low cliffs, fringed by pale beaches, broken by inlets; the green fields rolling away inland. But this was another country, with another language and a unique place in history.

The France that she could see was a republic, at war with half the nations of Europe, including her own. Sovay would be an alien, an enemy, but she had no choice. She had to go on. However hostile the country, her father was there, ill and perhaps in danger. She felt a hand over hers. Hugh was standing at her side, his pale face as set and determined as her own.

‘We will find him, Sovay,’ he said. ‘We will find him and take him home. Dysart will not hound us from our own country. We will find the evidence against him and defeat him once and for all.’

CHAPTER 3
0

T
hey sailed into the great port of Le Havre. The effects of the British Naval blockade were clear, with docks empty and ships lying idle, but where they tied up seemed busy enough with men moving barrels and sacks through the open doors of a large warehouse. They were not allowed to disembark but were met by a contingent of customs men, dressed in blue uniforms, who made a great show of examining everything and seemed increasingly suspicious, particularly about the passengers. Sovay had considerable misgivings that their adventure in France might be over before it had even started, particularly when a troop of National Guardsmen arrived in blue and white uniforms wearing red, white and blue sashes, the colours of the Republic. The soldiers took up position on the dock, while their Captain strode up the gangplank and swung himself on-board.

He was taller than Virgil, his long legs and wide shoulders accentuated by his uniform. He was a big man but he moved with easy grace. Sovay would not put him much above three and twenty, but his uniform was mended and faded, as though he had seen much action in it, and was decorated with marks of rank. Despite his youth, he was not a man to be taken lightly. He looked from one to another, his thick brows a straight bar over large intelligent eyes that were of a most unusual colour, somewhere between dark green and brown.

‘What have we here?’ he demanded.

The chief customs officer stepped forward to explain, but he was brushed aside.

‘I’ll deal with this, Citizen,’ he announced with a natural air of command. ‘I’m sure you have many other pressing duties to perform in the name of the Revolution. I would not want to detain you here.’

The man began to protest that customs were his jurisdiction, but faltered under the guardsman’s menacing stare. The customs officers looked at each other. None seemed inclined to argue further with the big guardsman and his armed soldiers and they left the boat without more ado.

‘Let’s go below, shall we?’ The guardsman looked from one to the other. ‘You can give me an account of yourselves there.’

As soon as they were in the cabin, Virgil and the guardsman clasped each other like brothers.

‘Citizen Barrett,’ the soldier exclaimed, his fierce face lightening. ‘Virgil! It is good to see you safely returned.’ Then he looked towards Hugh and Sovay, his frown returning. ‘And who do you bring with you?’

‘Hugo Valette,’ Virgil replied. ‘Nephew to Citizen Fernand who is a member of the Convention. And this is my cousin, Sophie Weston,’ he added smoothly. ‘My, ah, fiancée.’

The guardsman looked Sovay up and down and whistled through the slight gap in his front teeth.

‘
Veinard
!’ he said.

‘What does that mean?’ Sovay whispered to Hugh.

‘Roughly translated?’ Hugh whispered back. ‘Lucky dog!’

Sovay felt herself blush. The Frenchman had a scar on his upper lip, and his heavy features could not be ranked as handsome in the strictest sense, but there was something compelling about his countenance that disturbed her deeply. She wanted to look away from him immediately, but his dark green eyes held her. She could not help but stare at him, and his strong, frank gaze, just this side of insolence, disturbed her even more.

He broke the look first, removing his wide, plumed hat.

‘Citizen. Citizeness.’ He bowed slightly to each of them, although any displays of deference were now frowned upon as belonging to the old regime. ‘Captain Théodore Léon, at your service. I am here to escort you to Paris.’ He looked at Sovay again as though he found her presence troubling. Then he turned to the American. ‘Virgil. A word with you.’

They drew away and Hugh and Sovay stood in awkward silence as a fierce argument ensued. The two men spoke in French, but Sovay had enough of the language to know that they were speaking about her.

‘Are you mad? To bring her here? The way things are? You must be ruled by your –’ then came a word that Sovay did not catch and Hugh showed no willingness to translate.

‘No, you don’t understand.’ Virgil dragged him further away.

‘Even more madness!’ Léon came striding back. ‘Do you realise what you do? Her presence here is a clear danger. I should report it. She is enough to get us all arrested and condemned.’

Sovay drew herself up to her full height. She was tired, worried, and not a little apprehensive, but she would not be spoken of in that way, by this man, or any other.

‘I am not a fool, Captain,’ she said in careful French. ‘I’m not here to seek adventure. I have no choice in this matter, but others do. Including you. I do not ask for your protection. I only ask that you let us get on our way.’

Her response was clearly not what he expected. He regarded her for a moment or two, rubbing at the dark stubble that peppered his chin.

‘I regret, that is not possible, mademoiselle,’ he replied with elaborate courtesy. ‘I am required to escort you to prevent any interference with the supplies Citizen Barrett brings with him. Some of the countryside grows lawless and we do not want any local officials thinking they can commandeer goods destined for the Republican Army and the people of Paris. My mission is to see that you arrive safely. Do not jeopardise it. Before you leave the ship, make sure you are wearing these.’ He gave them each a tricolour rosette. ‘From now on, you must never be seen in public without it.’

They were only able to go as fast as the baggage train, so progress was slow. The villages they passed through were shuttered against them and each showed signs of poverty, or worse. The land was rich and fertile, but the fields lay uncultivated and the few animals grazing looked diseased and neglected. The only people they saw were haggard women, hollow-eyed children and decrepit old men. They all looked close to starvation.

Occasionally, through the trees, they saw chateaux, great houses, shuttered and boarded, some in ruins, burnt-out shells, deserted by their owners who had fled the country as émigrés. They passed through villages where the churches also lay empty, the fronts defaced, angels and patriarchs mutilated and smashed to rubble, the plate taken for the Republic’s treasury, the bells carted off to foundries to make cannon. In some places the cracked and broken remnants of wooden and plaster saints stood blackened on bonfires like so many Joans of Arc. Church doors hung off their hinges and scrawny animals wandered in and out as if these former places of worship were being used as barns or sties. In some places, the cemeteries had been similarly desecrated, the graves stripped of their crosses, the gates daubed with slogans:
Death is but an eternal sleep
.

‘The people have paid a high price,’ Léon said when Virgil remarked that conditions seemed worse than he’d ever seen them. The National Guardsman seemed devoid of sentiment. All his opinions were shot through with a soldier’s pragmatism. ‘The men are serving in the Revolutionary Army, the
levée en masse
has taken them from their fields and farms, but how else are we to prevent invasion with every nation in Europe ranged against us? The Duke of Brunswick has promised to raze Paris to the ground and kill everyone there – men, women and children. In the face of that, what are we to do? And soldiers must be fed. The people’s army have been out, gathering supplies for them and for Paris, but there is never enough and the city is close to starvation. The farmers here have little left for themselves, but they cannot refuse to contribute. The price of hoarding is death.’

They encountered little trouble. The troop of National Guardsmen in their distinctive blue and white uniforms, hardened soldiers, carrying arms, proved a suitable deterrent. In a few places they were challenged by groups of men with pikes, brave and defiant in their red bonnets, but many of them were old and half-starving.

‘I do not like to fight my own countrymen,’ Léon said, halting the train with a wave of his hand and ordering a sack or two of grain or flour to be distributed to ease their passage.

He ignored Sovay, for the most part, preferring to talk to Hugh or Virgil. When she expressed shock at what she was seeing, he seemed surprised that she should hold any opinion at all.

‘The people know what you do not,’ he said in a tone that implied that she would not understand. ‘Freedom comes at a cost. They are prepared to make the sacrifice. We are forced to fight for our very survival as a nation and few would want to go back to the old regime, even if such a thing were possible. We have come so very far. These people have lived under such oppression for so long, from the landowners, from the church. Each year, they had to pay taxes out of the little they had, to the King, to the Seigneur, to pay dues and banalities, while the King and the nobles grew fat and paid nothing. Is it not understandable that they would take revenge? That they would want to take a little back after being robbed for so many centuries?’

Sovay found it hard to understand Léon’s passionate and immovable support of the Republic, especially when she learnt that his full title had been Théodore de Léon, Écuyer, Marquis de Verand, but he had given up his noble rank to become part of the Revolution. He had been among the first to join the Third Estate and had taken part in the storming of the Bastille. Now, anyone of noble birth, or who had any aristocratic connection, was automatically suspect and subject to arrest. So far, his bravery in the field of battle and his Revolutionary credentials had kept him safe. For how long? The question remained unspoken, but Sovay was aware of increasing tension as they travelled nearer to the capital. Danger awaited them all.

The first real trouble came on the afternoon of the third day. They were rumbling across a bleak stretch of land when their way was blocked by an improvised barrier. It was manned by a group of men in the striped trousers and rough jackets of the
sans-culottes
. They all sported red liberty caps over their shaggy locks, and were heavily bewhiskered, with quantities of facial hair and long moustaches. They were well fed and well armed, not at all like the scarecrow bands that they had met before.

Léon called a halt.

‘
Armée révolutionnaire. Les Bons Patriotes
,’ he said, looking up ahead. ‘They could be trouble. They live off the people hereabouts. Scavengers and parasites. I thought that they had all been recalled to Paris.’

He ordered the passengers down from the carts and onto horseback. He put his own men up with the drivers, guns at the ready.

‘Whatever happens, the supplies must get through. I will go and see what they want.’ He looked over to Virgil. ‘Any trouble and drive your wagon straight through them. Look to your weapons, gentlemen.’

‘I don’t have a weapon,’ Sovay protested.

‘Why would you need one?’

‘To defend myself.’

He looked at her sceptically. ‘Can you shoot?’

‘Of course!’

‘Here.’ He gave her one of his own pistols. ‘It is loaded, so be careful.’

As Léon rode towards them, a man in a different uniform strutted out from the rest of the mob. He was dressed in dark blue, his high-collared coat swathed in a tricolour sash and he wore a matching plumed cockade in his tall hat.

‘Halt!’ he shouted. ‘State your business.’

‘I escort supplies for Paris.’

‘Passengers?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bring them to me, with their papers. Tell your men to stay back.’

Léon returned.

‘I know him. Gernaud. He’s
représentant-en-mission
, a Deputy sent out from the National Convention to meddle in the provinces,’ he explained to Hugh and Sovay. ‘He is a
terroriste
, also a prick. Come with me. But stay back and let me do the talking. Any trouble . . .’ He inclined his head to Virgil who gripped the reins in his hands and nodded back.

‘Citizen Léon.’ The official held out a gloved hand for the papers.

‘Gernaud.’

‘
Deputy
Gernaud,
if
you don’t mind.’

‘
Deputy
. . .’ Léon handed over the papers with exaggerated courtesy.

Gernaud spent a long time examining them, and then squinted up at Léon.

‘I declare you spies and enemies of the Republic. Consider yourself under arrest and your shipment impounded.’