VROLOK (40 page)

“Do I need to tell you? You should know we Irish are the best at starting a fight,” Joseph tipped his hat, leaned down and placed a green cockade in her raven hair. “This is what the friends of the revolution are wearing—wear it, it’ll keep you safe.”

“Thank you,” Isabella said accepting his gift.

He smiled once more at Isabella and then rode to the forefront of the mob and therefore into the forefront of danger. It was about to happen. The French citizens were about to storm the Bastille and the violence would begin.

Isabella watched on as Joseph and the others broke though into the courtyard; they demanded the surrender of the Bastille. The governor of the prison, De Launey, tried to negotiate and invited the leaders of the commonalty into the prison to talk to him. Several members of the crowd went in, which placated the mob, but only briefly. Hours drifted by and the crowd grew restless again. Rumours circulated that De Launey had imprisoned the men he had promised to negotiate with. These rumours mostly emanated from Joseph, who was maneuvering his way through the rabble and whispering in the right people‘s ears. The people again wanted blood and so did Isabella; she was thirsting for it.

A shot from a bayonet rang out. Isabella could see everything as night was fast approaching. Joseph was standing beside a smoking bayonet; he had fired the shot to incite the rabble. On hearing the shot De Launey lost his head and ordered his troops to fire on the crowds. Shot after shot rang out from the guns of the royal troops, but the mob just kept on coming. Cannon fire and an armed assault were not going to frighten them away.

The soldiers were terrified, even though they were picking off tens of these people with their guns; the mob was relentless—it would not be stopped. They surged forward and broke through the gates into the inner courtyard. De Launey, seeing the imminent danger, surrendered and pleaded for mercy, but he was not shown any. When the drawbridge was lowered the mob again surged forward through the gates, and now the table was turned on De Launey’s men. The crowd started to fight back and several of De Launey’s men were cut down. Joseph headed straight for the governor; he reached him within seconds and brutally attacked him. De Launey kicked out at him purely in self-defence. Joseph squealed out in pain. Isabella could see that he was not really hurt but the crowd around him used this act of violence as an excuse to beat De Launey to death. When they were finished Joseph lifted back his bloody matted hair and sliced off his head. He placed it on his sword and paraded it through the crowd. Isabella watched him, admiring him from a distance.

Joseph was killing for a cause he believed in, but this was not the reason for Isabella’s admiration; the way in which he killed impressed Isabella. He was just as vicious and malicious as she was.

Isabella played her part in the storming of the Bastille. She ran through the crowds killing as many as she could, not really caring if they were troops or commoners. Joseph caught sight of her fighting; he thought she was fighting with the Bourgeoisie. He smiled over at her, blood dripping from his face, and Isabella returned his gaze. The pair fought on. When it was over, Joseph lifted his sword, which still had De Launey’s decapitated head upon it. He climbed up the Bastille wall and secured it onto the battlements. The crowd watched as he climbed and cheered when the head was in place. Others in the crowd followed suit and all the dead soldiers’ heads were stuck on the spikes and swords and tied to the battlements of the Bastille, for all to see.

Isabella surveyed the jubilant crowd. She too was for a moment swept away by this euphoria but it was fleeting, for Isabella caught sight of an old enemy. Leila was standing amongst the crowd, watching Isabella.

Isabella spent the next few years in Paris. There was not a better place for her in the world. People were being killed by the hundreds, sometimes even a thousand a month. She had not seen Leila since that day. She had disappeared from sight but Isabella sensed she was close; she could feel her malevolent penetrating essence all around her. Isabella knew she would confront her eventually and she watched and waited. Isabella sadly, had not seen Joseph again, either… until one day in early September, 1792.

“Aoife!” Isabella responded to one of her many pseudonyms by turning around to see Joseph, in uniform.

“Joseph, have you become respectable?” Isabella asked a mocking tone resonated through her voice.

“Respectable enough to have three meals a day.”

“Always important; it appears the revolution is giving us both sustenance,” Isabella grinned.

“Walk with me a ways?” Joseph said.

“I will,” Isabella complied.

“Do you miss Ireland?” Joseph asked.

“I can’t say I do. And surely you do not, when you are getting fed so well.”

“My stomach may not but my heart does. I miss home…I miss the wide-open spaces, the green valleys, the stone and thatched cottages.”

“The starvation, the poverty,” Isabella said sarcastically.

“Still… I want to go home,” Joseph said, gazing off into the distance. Something was bothering him.

“But you have found so much prosperity in Paris.”

“I have found prosperity in Paris that’s true, but at what cost? I used to be fighting for something I believed in, but now I am not.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am on my way to slaughter priests, some of them Irish, all of them Catholic. This is not what I set out to do.”

Isabella was stunned. This was not the same man who had speared De Launey’s head on his sword and had placed it on the gates of the Bastille. The revolution had changed him.

“That is the problem with causes; they are always lost before the end. Just don’t kill them. You don‘t have to.”

“But you see I do, I have been ordered to, and I don’t want to starve ever again.”

Joseph stayed silent for a moment and then continued, “After I do this I can never go back home.”

“Who has ordered you to kill priests?” Isabella asked.

“The Committee of Twelve Revolutionaries… may their hands be stained red by the time the night is over.” Isabella was struck by these words; they reminded her of a dying man’s last words.

“The Twelve Reds,” she whispered.

“What did you say?” Joseph asked.

“Nothing. I have to come with you though. I have to see it.”

“Why? I don’t even want to see it.”

“I can’t explain it but I have to see it.”

Isabella walked with Joseph. Their steps were heedful and hesitant. Isabella felt as if this dead French man was haunting her now, pressing her to make good on her promise to him. Joseph entered the prison with a heavy heart. The slaughter had already begun.

Isabella was for once was not interested in the killing. She climbed up the stairs. She had heard that the King was being held in this prison. She took the keys to the King’s cell and went to talk to him.

“Who are you?” asked Louis Capet, as he was now known.

“No one,” Isabella answered.

“What is going on downstairs?” he asked. Both Isabella and the King heard screams coming from the dungeons below.

“They are executing some of the prisoners,” Isabella stated. The King wiped sweat from his brow.

“Am I to be executed?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“They have executed my complete ruin.” This too was a phrase Isabella had heard before.

“What did you say?”

“I am ruined and now I am to be executed.”

“You have only yourself to blame,” Isabella scolded, totally lacking in sympathy. “You and your whole class walked through the streets displaying your extravagance while your country starved. You are now paying for centuries of complacency.” The King sat down, his head in his hands and wept, waiting for the inevitable. Isabella left him and went back downstairs to Joseph.

“Are you finished?” she asked.

“I am,” Joseph answered disgusted by what he had just been a part of. Isabella glanced at the floor of the prison; it was red with blood. She was distracted by a man running towards them.

“We are men of the cloth,” the man shouted. At this Joseph drew out his sword and slashed the man’s neck. He was dead immediately, and blood seeped onto his clothes and his white priest’s collar. Isabella looked at the floor again. Twelve priests lay bleeding. Isabella’s head was filled with memories. She felt as if she was destined to be here—the twelve reds—that phrase echoed in her mind; the twelve dying priests that lay on the floor before her. Another phrase entered her head—‘the great seized’ was Louis Capet, the once king of France.

“Under murder, murder will perpetrate itself,” Isabella whispered. She had witnessed this for years. This turbulent city was going through constant upheaval and every regime that took over was more bloody than the last.

“What did you say?” Joseph remarked.

“Under murder, murder will perpetrate itself. I have to stop it,” Isabella answered.

“What are you talking about?”

Isabella looked at Joseph and smiled; she had a new purpose. Mark Nosterdames’s words were finally understood.

“Do you want to atone, Joseph?” Joseph considered this proposal for just a few moments. He looked at the evidence of the carnage all over the floor and he answered honestly.

“Yes, more than anything.”

“I can give you a chance to atone. I am no righter of wrongs, I know that, but it was a dying man’s wish that I would stop this reign of terror, and I will,” Isabella said, determined to make it so.

“It would take a miracle to stop this madness,” Joseph stated.

“Then a miracle is what will happen,” Isabella concluded.

Charlotte Corday watched from a distance as Louis Capet was led to the guillotine. His hair was cut from his head and then he was pushed up the steps. They dropped the blade on Louis’ head and he screamed in agony—the blade had only partially severed the back of his neck. The guillotine like everything else in France in the end had let him down and inflicted more suffering upon him than his crimes called for. The blade was pulled up again and was let fall; this time it was successful. The executioner lifted the head of the former King to show the crowd. At first they were stunned. France had just killed her King, but then the stunned crowd erupted as somewhere someone shouted.

“Long live the Republic!” An air of celebration once more echoed among the people who were packed into the Place de la Révolution.

Charlotte could not stay and watch any longer. She did not want to be a part of this anymore. She was a revolutionary and a republican but she had seen too much murder in her short life. She wanted a republic, but not at the cost of needless waste of life.

She turned and walked away as the crowd cheered. She glared up at Marat; he was smiling while watching this brutality. He was a staunch republican who incited and perpetuated this violence by the writings in his newspaper,
The Friend of the People
. Charlotte was disgusted at the hellish scene. She showed her disgust visibly and Isabella was there to see it.

“Charlotte?” Charlotte was startled. No one here knew her. She turned to face the Vampire.

“How do you know my name?” Charlotte asked.

“I know many things about you, Charlotte,” Isabella answered. “I feel your hatred towards that man.” Isabella motioned towards Marat.

“I don’t hate anybody,” Charlotte said.

“I think you do.”

“What business is it of yours?” Charlotte sharply enquired.

“I can help you.”

“Help me do what?”

“Create a miracle that will end this carnage.”

“A miracle?”

“Yes but that will come later. First, I want to help you do something that I know you want to do.”

“And what is that?”

“I want to help you kill Marat.”

Charlotte knocked on the door; she looked back behind her and saw Isabella and Joseph out of the corner of her eye. “
Trust me.”
Isabella projected this thought into Charlotte’s mind. Charlotte nodded just as the door was opened.