Sovay (34 page)

Sovay left the prison to find a Paris transformed. The streets were full of people, showing their release, their gladness, by laughing, singing, drinking and dancing. They had endured. They had survived. The Conciergerie was close by the great church of Notre Dame. The doors were open. A steady stream of visitors, mostly women, was going in to give thanks to whichever deity, God or Reason, had prevailed.

Later that day, Sovay would go to the Place de la Révolution, accompanied by Léon, Virgil, Hugh and his friend, Fernand. The guillotine had been brought back to the centre of the city and reassembled for this special occasion and the streets were thronged with people. There were as many lining the streets and crammed into the square as had been present at the death of Louis XVI. They were here to witness the end of a different kind of tyranny.

Shouts and cheering marked the slow rumbling progress of the tumbrels across the city. A great roar went up when at last the carts rolled into view. One by one, the prisoners mounted the scaffold, were placed on the plank, as so many had been before them. The crowd seemed to hold its breath at each hissing, heavy fall of the blade, to explode into cheering at the tumbling of the head into the basket, the lazy sluice of blood.

At last, Robespierre, a slight figure, his face bandaged, his sky-blue jacket stained with blood, mounted the scaffold. His coat was stripped from him. The executioner tore the bandage from his wounded jaw and a high-pitched animal scream rang out across the huge expanse of the Place de la Révolution. A single, sharp cry of agony from one who had brought such suffering to so many. Robespierre was strapped to the plank and the blade descended. It was all over in less than a minute. The people had their revenge.

More were to die that evening, but Sovay had seen enough death. She left on the arm of her lover and did not stay to witness the passing of the various allies and supporters of the tyrant, among them the Englishman, Dysart.

Afterword

June, 1816

‘And your sister never returned to England?’

‘No, she never did.’

The story had begun with Sir Jonathan Trenton’s portrait of her that stood at the top of the stairs. It was finishing with the miniature that Sir Hugh was showing to us now. It had taken him some days to tell and he’d kept us well entertained through the current spell of unseasonably inclement weather.

‘She married Léon, the dashing young captain and hero of the Revolution. After all that austerity, Paris went wild. One long round of hectic gaiety: parties, salons, theatre, the opera. Sovay and her husband were much in demand. They called her
La Minerve
. This is a likeness taken about that time.’

The picture showed a striking young woman in a pale primrose dress, seated on a chaise longue, her head turned
à l’odalisque
, her bare shoulders and long neck accentuated by her dark, cropped curls.

‘Her short hair was very fashionable. The new fashions of the
merveilleuses
suited her, those simple dresses based on the style of Greece and Rome. All very à la mode,’ he laughed. ‘Although she never adopted that most extreme of Thermidorian affectations: a thin red ribbon tied round the neck.’

‘Is she still alive?’

‘Why, yes! She lives in Venice, in a palazzo by the

Grand Canal. Now that the war with Napoleon is over, I’m thinking of visiting her.’ He looked around at the company. ‘Perhaps we should all go to escape this beastly weather.’

C
ELIA
R
EES

is the bestselling and award-winning author of
Witch
Child
,
Sorceress
,
Pirates!
and
The Fool’s Girl
. She lives in Leamington Spa, England, where she spends her time writing, talking to readers in schools and libraries, and teaching creative writing.

www.celiarees.com

R
EAD ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK OF
C
ELIA
R
EES’S NEXT MASTERPIECE

V
ioletta may be royalty, but her kingdom is in shambles. In London, she begins a mysterious mission with her comic friend Feste. But it is only when they meet William Shakespeare that their journey truly begins.

MARIA

There were things a child could not know. With Viola spending so much time at the summer palace, rumours grew. Some whispered that the Duke had lost interest, preferring his books to his young wife, and she, in turn, had lost interest in him.

They also whispered about Lord Sebastian: that he resented his sister, that he was jealous of her. He was
Count
Sebastian, but she was Duchessa. Not only that, but he had lost his wife to her. Olivia might have married him, but there was no doubt which twin she preferred. It was as though she’d made her vows to the sister, not the brother, they said as they laughed behind their hands, but no one said such things in his hearing. He had a violent temper on him and was always ready to draw steel.

Who knows what goes on in men’s minds? Who knows what causes a canker to root there and grow to bitter hatred? Lord Sebastian attracted followers, young men who found the Duke’s court as dull and boring as the dusty old books in his library. Without my lady there, her palace became more like a barracks. My Toby was supposed to keep an eye on things, but you might as well have set a sot to oversee a brew house. The men spent their days hunting in the forest, or hawking in the hills. They spent their nights getting drunk. When they weren’t out hunting, the Count’s men swaggered around town, dressed in his black-and-white livery, causing trouble. They often clashed with the Duke’s men, and over time the two groups became sworn enemies. The young men of both courts wandered the town, seeking each other out, swapping slights and insults. Fights were frequent and often bloody. What began with single fights and skirmishes ended up in pitched battles. The followers were acting out their masters’ rivalry. However much Count Sebastian might crow over siring a boy, while the Duke could only manage a girl, he bitterly resented the power that Orsin held over him.

About this time, the fortunes of our country began to decline. Illyria had always been rich and prosperous, had rarely known want, but her prosperity came from the sea. There were bad trading seasons. Ships were lost: argosies failed to return, or never arrived at their destination. The Duke took each loss upon himself. It was not the money or the goods. The sailors were men from the port, or the islands offshore, or the villages along the coast. A ship going down meant widows, fatherless children. The Duke grew thin and haggard busying himself to make sure that each family was provided for, the losses covered, and that there was enough food for his people.

Lord Sebastian was often absent abroad. It was said that he had grown bored with life in Illyria and was seeking excitement in Italy and Spain. Like his sister, he loved the sea and he loved adventure. The ills of the country began with his travels. He was seen in Venice, on the Rialto and at the Doge’s palace. His friend Antonio was banned from the city, but they were seen together in different ports. Antonio was an Uskok, a pirate, with a particular hatred for the Duke, and Venice had long been Illyria’s enemy.

None of this happened in the time it takes for night to turn to day. It takes months, years, from the day the ships leave port to when they return, or are never seen again. Life went on, much the same as ever . . .

VIOLETTA

. . . Until the year when I was ten years old and everything changed. At the end of each summer, the palace was closed up and we went back to the city. I saw less of Stephano during the winter, but that year he did not appear at the summer palace at all.

‘Sebastian has claimed him,’ Lady Olivia said. ‘Made him his page. He wants to make a man of him.’ She laughed, but there were tears in her eyes as she said it.

I missed him sorely, but I hid my sorrow in the way that children do. I always had Feste to teach me new tricks and laugh me out of my misery. He’s no child, but he can enter into a child’s world. He can be savage and kind by turns, as children are; he sees with a child’s clear and pitiless eye. He spies what lies beneath surface appearances and will punish pretension and hypocrisy with merciless mockery.

He went where he wanted, but he was the Lady Olivia’s Fool, so came with her to the summer palace. He taught me to juggle and tumble, to walk a rope without falling and do magic tricks. He taught me how to whistle like a bird, hoot like an owl, how to make all manner of noises and sounds and use them for mischief and trickery.

Feste’s lessons were useful to me as a currency with the boys who had been sent by their families to my father’s court. In the winter months I took lessons with them. My father believed that girls should be educated like boys, and was happy to find that I had a quick mind and an aptitude for learning. I counted the boys my friends and became an honorary page. Feste had shown me the value of duplicity. I created pockets of freedom within my life as the Duke’s daughter. The palace was very large. Often no one knew where I was, or who was supposed to be looking after me; by telling one person one thing and something else to another, it was easy for me to pass under everybody’s notice.

My favourite among the pages was Guido, the son of an Italian duke. He was small, with a mass of curly brown hair springing out from under his blue-and-red cap. He was a handsome boy, with clear olive skin spattered with freckles, and large green eyes flecked with black. His friends called him Gatto, Italian for cat. He could usually smile and talk his way out of anything, no matter how stern the master, or how serious the scrape. He was wild and mischievous and now that Stephano had gone from my life, he was the perfect substitute. I taught him tricks, swearing him to secrecy. If Feste found out, he would be furious. A Fool does not divulge his secrets, and I was the Fool’s Girl. We would outdo each other in feats of daring: walking along the battlements and roof ridges, mounting raids deep into Count Sebastian’s territory, south of the Stradun, the wide thoroughfare that divides the city. We would go there to steal peaches, shout insults, steal buckets of blue wash to daub the Duke’s colours and his motto on their walls.

It was the end of August. I’d come back early from the summer palace. I’d missed Stephano. Without him there, I was expected to join the ladies. I was ten and no longer a child. I felt the adult world close in on me: sewing and poetry. I could not wait to get back to the city to be free.

When Guido suggested we went on a raid, I was more than willing. We collected a bucket of blue wash from outside a house that was being painted and set off through the twisting narrow alleys, steep flights of steps and hidden squares that make up Illyria town. We were safe enough in our territory, but more cautious after we crossed the Stradun. The alleyways often lead nowhere, or turn in on one another like a maze. It is easy to get lost in an unfamiliar district, possible to turn a sudden corner and be face to face with an enemy without any warning, avenues of escape limited, or absent.

The noise from the Stradun should have warned us, but we paid it no attention. We were right up the other end, and fights were always breaking out down by the market. Insults and name calling easily turned into scuffles and the flash of steel with stalls overturned, the fruit and vegetables used as missiles or crushed underfoot in the melee. We heard the shouts, the city guard running to sort it out, but we thought that we would be safe.

‘This’ll do.’ Guido stopped in front of a high wall. He looked up at the expanse of cream stucco, as a painter might eye a canvas. ‘I’ll get started. You stand lookout.’

He dipped his brush and daubed
VV,
short for
Veritas Vincit
, my father’s motto. He was just finishing the open triangle with a bar across the top, which had come to mean my father’s insignia, the eagle, when I heard men coming up the steps. Not just one or two, but a lot of them. I went to look. There must have been ten, walking five abreast, blocking the steps. They were talking loud, laughing and bragging, as men do when they have been fighting. Their black-and-white tunics and hose were torn; one or two were bloody.

‘Count’s men, Guido! Quick!’

I was already running. I expected Guido to follow me, but when I looked back he was standing at the top of the steps, laughing, with the bucket in his hand. He’d thrown the paint all over them. I heard their roar of fury, the stamping of their boots as they took the steps two at a time to get him. He hurled the bucket for good measure and took off into a tangle of little alleys that led up to the walls. This part of the town had been abandoned, the houses tumbled in an earthquake. There were plenty of hiding places in the ruins and overgrown gardens, so I wasn’t worried; besides, I had problems of my own. One of the Count’s men was following me, running swiftly and gaining. He was shouting my name. He’d recognised me. That made me run even faster. I didn’t stop to think how he knew me; I was in trouble enough. I hitched up my dress, but the skirts twisted and tangled round my legs. He would outrun me for sure.

He caught me at the top of the steps that led down to the gates, where I knew I would be safe, grabbing me from behind and pulling me back. I had no weapon, but I thought I could take him. He was a page, not much bigger than me. Feste had taught me how to fight, and fight dirty. I kicked back and felt my heel connect with bone, then I jabbed him in the midriff. As he doubled over, I planned to grab him and pitch him down the steps. I caught hold of his collar, twisting so he couldn’t breathe, and got ready to push and kick him on his way.

‘Violetta!’ He wriggled to get free of my grip. ‘It’s me!’

I let go of him then, looking down the long, steep flight of stone steps. He could have broken his neck.
I
could have broken his neck. It was Stephano. I hardly recognised him. I hadn’t seen him for a year and more and he looked different. Older. I’d never seen him in his father’s black-and-white livery before.

‘We have to go after the boy who was with you,’ he said.

‘Guido? He can look after himself.’

‘My father’s men – they took a licking on the Stradun. They will be after blood.’

‘There’s plenty of places to hide up there,’ I said. ‘He’ll be all right.’

‘You don’t understand!’ He looked around. ‘My father has had the buildings blocked up to keep out beggars and people living there without a permit. The alleys lead nowhere – they are just dead ends.’

We found him in a small square surrounded by tall tenements, their doors blocked with stone, their windows roughly bricked up. He was propped against a well surrounded by the Count’s men, their black-and-white livery flecked with blue splashes. They were taking their time with him. His mouth was swollen. Blood glistened on his hair and ran in a thick streak down his face, dripping on to his tunic. The fun was nearly over. One of them drew his stiletto. Another was easing his sword from his scabbard. Guido was looking up at them, death in his eyes. The Cat’s luck had run out. He’d used up all his lives.

Stephano started forward, dagger drawn. He would likely be thrown aside by his father’s men, but he would not stand by and watch Guido butchered.

A sudden shout of command held his step. The Count’s men turned, disconcerted, as the first shout was answered by another. Then came the tramp of marching feet, the sound of men approaching the square from all directions. The Count’s men stepped back from their quarry. Their leader reached down, his stiletto angled for a quick thrust up into the chest, ready to gut the boy like a fish, but a loud command stayed his hand. He turned. The rest of the square was deserted. The shouting seemed to come from nowhere. The marching feet were getting closer. New orders rang out, although there was no one to be seen. The Count’s men crouched, swords drawn, standing back to back, ready to strike out. The echoing shouts became too much. It was as though an invisible army of ghosts and spirits was coming for them. They turned tail and ran.

I looked about, trying to work out what had happened, and then I saw Feste, seated cross-legged on the balustrade of a balcony, wiping the tears from his eyes. When I looked again, he had gone.

I saw him. ‘Here. Through here.’ Feste was pushing loose bricks from a window. He beckoned to us.

We carried Guido between us, and Feste took us through the ruined house and out into a garden hard against the city wall. The garden was cultivated, with fig trees, orange trees, flowers and herbs. Broken steps led to a little door that opened directly into the wall.

We followed a winding staircase up to a long, narrow room. On one side, pointed windows opened on to the sea; on the other, they showed a jostling tide of terracotta roofs. Swallows and swifts flew in and out, swooping up to nests high in the rafters. The room was loud with their shrilling and chirruping. I looked about in wonder. There were birds perched about everywhere: some drab little sparrows, others far more exotic with bright plumage. Not all of them were real. Some were carved from wood, cloaked in feathers and painted in artful imitation of their living counterparts. The room was full of carvings: birds, animals, human figures. Puppets hung by their strings from the rafters. Saints and angels, devils and Madonnas stood grouped in corners as though whispering one to another.

Richly patterned fabrics covered the rough stone walls. A loom stood at one end, and from a corner came the sound of a spinning wheel. The spinner looked up as we stumbled into the room.

‘We need your help, Mother,’ Feste called.

She stilled the wheel, taking care not to break the thread, and came towards us. She was dressed like one of the wandering people, or those who came from the East: her headscarf fringed with little copper discs, the bodice of her red-and-purple dress heavy with rows of silver coins. As she walked the coins jingled together, and I had to plait my fingers behind my back to fight the temptation to cross myself. I knew her by reputation. Her name was Marijita and she was
vjestica
, a witch.

She smiled, as if she knew what I was thinking.

‘Don’t believe all you hear, my pretty.’

Feste called her ‘mother’, but there was no look of him about her. She was tall, her dark face lined, especially about the eyes, which sparked as dark and bright as those of the hoopoe that perched on her shoulder, its feathered crest erect, its orange head turned at the same angle as hers. Some whispered that her birds were so tame that they had to be the captured spirits of her enemies. She uttered a light trilling sound and the bird flew up to perch on a rafter, where it continued to stare down at us with beady black eyes.