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  “Go! Damn it! Go! The river is only fifty yards away.” Wright turned and took aim. I ran. I heard a shot and a cry, and tried not to think about what might have happened.

  I ran down onto the Quai de la Tournette; Notre Dame was across the river to my left, the Ile Saint Louis in front of me. The Seine was narrower than the Thames but no tide cleansed it each day so it smelled even worse. Across the river came the rhythmic slapping sounds of the washer women beating clothes on their ramshackle barges that lined the opposite bank and made the navigable channel even narrower. The Quai was crowded and I tried to calm myself down and act like a Frenchman, or at least less like a deranged lunatic. I was filthy and stank worse than the river, but in Paris that helped me blend in. I proceeded to walk through the crowd, keeping my head low, avoiding the eyes of others and moving at the same pace as everyone else.

  Barges were being unloaded, piles of vegetables, sacks and barrels narrowed the street to only a few yards, and that was why he saw me. I chanced a look over my shoulder and my eyes met the hard stare of the man in the grey coat. He was standing on a cart, carefully surveying the narrowest stretch of the road. I looked away but it was too late. I heard a shout and the multitude behind me began to part like the Red Sea. He signalled to his men and they quickly and efficiently began to close on me. The bayonetted tip of a musket wavered through the crowd in front of me, and then another. There were no roads off the Quai close enough so that left only one direction; I dashed between two carts and jumped down on to the wooden jetty. I had often thought that the Seine was so crowded with boats that you could walk across it but never thought I would put the theory to the test.

  A barge was just casting off, two men pushing the bow into the crowded river. I leapt on board, scrambling over the canvas-covered loads. The bargeman at the tiller shouted and swore as his men began to come after me. I ducked as one swung at me with a boat hook and then I kicked him in the crotch. Three more stepped over his doubled-up body, including the red-faced man from the tiller. Three-to-one are odds that I try to avoid, especially when the stakes are high.

  The bow of the barge had swung well out into the current and another barge had put its rudder hard over to avoid us. It was going to be damn close, but not close enough for my liking. The water did not look at all inviting but I had little choice. I stood up on the side rail, steadying myself on the rigging. I kicked the nearest bargeman in the face and then leapt for the barge that was by now trying to sweep past us. I knew I wasn’t going to make it a split second after I jumped, but it was a bit late to change my mind. I crashed into the side of the barge like a bull at a gate and just as gracefully. My hands scrabbled for grip and my feet flailed about in the Seine. A face appeared above me, leaning over the side and letting fly a broadside of abuse. I had managed to get one leg up on the rail but I felt hands trying to push me back down. I reached up and grabbed my abuser by the collar and pulled. He went over the side and I got enough purchase to get myself over on to the deck.

  I stood, gingerly. My ribs hurt like the devil but at least I had only got my boots wet. The guards were still on the dock opposite. I gave them the same salute our archers gave the French at Agincourt. The man in grey grabbed a musket from one of his men. I felt safe enough, the range was at least a hundred yards, he’d be lucky to hit the barge. He fired. The ball thudded into the mast two inches behind my head. He snatched another musket. I thought it was probably time to go. I jumped from the other side of the boat and landed on the deck of one of the washer women’s barges. The women screamed as I upset their tubs, one caught me on the rump with her beater. The second ball hit a tub just as I ran past. He was a bloody good shot, or just very lucky. I jumped from the barge to a jetty.

  A splintering of wood and a stream of colourful Gallic curses announced the collision of the two barges but I didn’t turn to look until I was up a flight of steps and into the throng that had gathered to watch the fun. The man in the grey cloak was leading his men through the crowd towards the nearest bridge. The barges were entangled in the middle of the channel with another looking as if it would collide with them at any second.

  I adjusted my coat, ran my fingers through my hair and lost myself in the narrow alleyways of the Ile de la Cité. If I had any hope of getting back to England I knew I would need help and that it would probably not come cheap. I knew a man who, for the right price, could arrange anything. The only trouble was that I didn’t even have enough money on me to pay for a decent meal and I didn’t think he’d accept credit. My only hope was no hope at all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I walked through Paris trying every second to not break into a run or duck into an alley and hide. I’ve stood in battle next to my comrades as canon balls smashed through the ranks but being alone with a whole city against you and the guillotine’s blade poised above your neck like Damocles' sword was altogether more intimidating. The hangover didn’t help either.

  Hurrying through the streets that day was a lot like seeing a much loved friend who’s usually witty and charming, nursing a bad case of gout. Whether it was me or whether it was possible that an entire city had changed its disposition overnight I cannot say. I wandered among the crowds and felt, for the first time, like a foreigner, like a lover spurned by his mistress. All my clothes were of the French cut and my French, after nearly a year of gambling and seduction was flawless, but all the same I kept my mouth firmly shut. I felt sure that I kept attracting glances, hard stares and that long look that Frenchmen give you when they are assessing whether you will try to sleep with their wives or whether your own may be in need of some attention. No one else was strolling, dawdling, or promenading either; everyone had something to do or a place to be. The small knots of men on street corners exchanged frowns and serious opinions where yesterday they would have shared a pipe or two, talking about little but making it last.

  Twice I rapidly turned corners to avoid municipal guards who seemed to be demanding papers at random, spreading fear and chaos like hounds diving into the rough. I spotted no other Englishmen at all. Even on the shaded paths of the Tuilleries I saw no dowagers taking the air, no lovelorn lords composing odes to actresses beside the fountains of the gardens of Apollo and Daphne, no future admirals scaring the swans with their model sailing boats on the ponds. All my countrymen must have either had more sense than I, and got out of Paris long before, or been ensnared in Bonaparte’s net. Still, there must have been thousands of English tourists in France and some would have been in the same pickle. If they were then they were avoiding the usual haunts.

  Legac's café was closed. The windows of the Palais des Tuilleries were shuttered and there was no sign of the new occupant of the Royal apartments. Bonaparte was no doubt busy planning the war. The Palais de Louvre was deserted, no serried ranks of philistines marching past the treasures of Renaissance Italy just to say they had been, no lechers ogling the nymphs. Even the girls had abandoned their usual haunts outside the Palais Royal; at that time of the morning there should have been at least been one or two ready for business.

  It was damned hard to be both cautious and nonchalant at the same time but I was approaching my goal and did not want to be caught. I had considered going back to my hotel, but the Grange Batelière was popular with the English and would have been guarded. Besides, at fifteen Louis a month for a tiny room in what had once been the servants’ quarters I felt no compunction to go back and pay my bill. So, I pursued my original plan. I walked twice past the green door of the Salon de la Paix before I saw the man leaning against the colonnades and picking his nose as if he was taking a shortcut to scratching the back of his head. His clothes were last year’s cut and well worn, the sign of a junior public official. I knew I had been ridiculously optimistic in supposing that the salon, where I and every other Englishman in Paris had spent many hedonistic and slightly hazy hours, would not have been watched by the police, but the only man that I thought had a chance of getting me back to England would be inside. Even if my sen
se of self-preservation wasn’t enough, the weight of the packet in my coat made me aware of a slight flush of duty, much like the coming on of a fever.

  I suppose that now might be as good a moment as any for some personal history. My name is Benjamin Blackthorne, late of the XIIth Light Dragoons, although at that point I was on half pay as many fine officers were during those brief months of peace. However, my lack of military employment was not just due to the rather inconvenient lack of a war to fight.

  I had decided that soldiering was not for me. I had this startling revelation when I was sat on an ancient Roman wall, the powder smoke beginning to clear, the sun edging above the horizon and catching the towers and minarets of Alexandria in the distance. My best friend Edward Lavery lay dead at my feet. I knew that I couldn’t stomach another battle. His blood had dyed my blue jacket black and my hands red. I wondered how I was going to tell his wife that I had killed him.

  The French had attacked at night. The fighting was confused, some regiments fighting to their front and rear simultaneously. I rode back and forth with messages for General Abercromby, fighting the temptation to gallop as far from the fighting as I could. Explosions lit the battleground into a series of tableaux, each lasting less than a second; the French columns advancing up the hill to the beat of their drums, the redcoats firing volleys into the dark from the old Roman fort, the French cavalry sweeping towards me, the horses’ teeth bared while the fires of hell reflected in the dragoons’ brass helmets, a highlander crawling to the rear carrying his own arm.

  My mare was shot from under me, her legs crumpled and I was off. I lay dazed. Swirls of smoke surrounded me like wraiths. I was alone. The laboured breaths of my dying horse, the cracks of muskets and the thunder of canon my only evidence that anything else existed, that the world had not yet ended, but for me it was about to. I wiped the blood from my eyes and saw a figure coming towards me, sword in hand, through the smoke.

  I fired.

  I spent the rest of that tortuous campaign suffering the flies and the heat but thankfully only engaging in one further action, in which I managed to distinguish myself by suicidally charging five enemy dragoons and receiving only a cut on my cheek for my pains. I didn’t care if I lived or died. The drinking began to be noticed by my fellow officers, and by my colonel, but I was past considering what people thought of me, past caring what I thought of myself after the third bottle each night.

  To my great discredit I never did tell Edward’s widow the truth. It was months after I had returned that I went to see her, and I had to have a few drinks before I found the courage to go at all. She said she was glad to see me but I think I just reminded her of him. I didn’t go back. Instead I left for Paris, sick of London society, sick of myself. In Paris I did my best to enjoy life, drink, gambling, women – the usual distractions for a man intent on avoiding his problems.

  The Salon de la Paix had been my favourite haunt; the drink was cheap, the women friendly and the games mostly honest. Now, it was my only hope of escape. The more I thought about the events of the morning the more worried I became. If Bonaparte had ordered every Englishman arrested then all bets were off. Civilised countries couldn’t behave like that; there were conventions, treaties and just ways of doing things. However, since I had just walked past where the guillotine had once stood in the Place de la Concorde I had to acknowledge that France had long since abandoned civilised behaviour. The other thing that was bothering me was John Wright. I knew nothing of the Alien Office he spoke of, perhaps they had dealings with many of the Royalists sheltering from the Revolution back in England, but how and why were they involved here? God only knew what the packet contained and don’t think I wasn’t tempted to get rid of the damn thing, and even more tempted to read it but it was sealed. At one point I had weighed it in my hand and looked down at the crowded waters of the Seine, but I just couldn’t do it. It could have been worth something to the French and if I had been caught it might have saved my neck.

  So there I was outside the Salon, wondering what to do next. I remembered my old colonel had often said “If in doubt, watch and wait.” I hadn’t ever paid much attention to anything he said before but thought that perhaps the time had come to act upon some of the deluge of sage advice with which he favoured his junior officers. So I walked over to the nearest boot cleaner’s, sat on a very uncomfortable raised sofa and pretended to read Le Moniteur while a boy got the filth off my boots and I watched the salon through the window, wracking my brains for a plan.

  For once I did not immediately turn to the back page and the spectacles section to see what was on at the theatre but concentrated on the exterieur news on the front page. Le Moniteur could be relied upon to give Bonaparte’s view and I was not surprised to read that the renewal of hostilities was all perfidious Albion’s fault. Britain’s insistence at holding on to Malta was a flagrant violation of the Treaty of Amiens whereas France’s invasion of Switzerland, annexation of Elba and continued presence in northern Italy were perfectly justifiable. The paper didn’t tell me much that I couldn’t have guessed but the time had been well spent. I had a plan.

  I handed the lad doing his best on my boots a very large tip, winked and said that I was in need of company. Within two minutes a girl came up to me and took my arm and had begun to lead me to her rooms. I stopped her and said I wanted to talk first. She gave me one of those looks that said she thought she had a strange one here and was no doubt calculating how much extra she could charge for whatever debauchery I had in mind. She was well past her prime and I wouldn’t have been tempted even had I not been stone cold sober. I explained what I wanted her to do, gave her as much as she would earn in a night and aimed her at her target.

  She wasn’t subtle. The man watching the salon had ceased his nasal excavations and had branched out into aural mining, examining each finger-full of wax with utter concentration for several seconds before sniffing it tentatively and going back for more. He looked bored, or stupid, and hopefully both. The girl walked up to him and grabbed his crotch like she was picking a turnip from a greengrocer’s barrow. He smiled, she smiled and off they went. It was that simple, or so I hoped as I slipped around the back of the salon. Trying the front door would have been pushing my luck.

  I had previously needed to make a hasty exit from the salon whilst the Earl-of-somewhere-obscure came looking for me with a pair of pistols and the heartfelt conviction that I had cheated him at cards and cuckolded him in the same night. He was only half right. My departure had been swift but I thought I could find my way to the back stairs again.

  In daylight the back of the salon was not pleasant. I trod carefully over a carpet of broken bottles and rotten cabbage until I came to the staircase that led to the kitchens. There were no steaming pots that day, no swearing chef beating an errant pâtissier around the head with a frying pan. There was only a very ugly and very tall lady having her toilette assisted by the man I had come to see.

  “We are closed. Go away.” Henri Durand, owner of the Salon, did not turn around to see who was at his door. I put his lack of a civil greeting down to the fact that he didn’t know it was me.

  “Henri, it’s me. Ben Blackthorne,” I said.

  “We are closed. Go away, Ben.”

  I walked into the kitchen anyway. The coppers shone in the shafts of sunlight coming through the high windows, but they were the only things that were clean. By all means enjoy the cuisine of the French, but never, ever, ask to see their kitchens. A thick film of grease covered every surface and my boots crunched on Lord knows what as I approached a jug of water that I’d spied on the table.

  “Do you mind?” I asked as I pointed at the jug.

  “If I say no will you take as much notice as you did when I told you to go away?” Henri replied.

  “Probably.”

  “Then help yourself. I will add it to your slate.”

  I drained half the jug and immediately felt better, albeit marginally. The throbbing in my head softened from a m
ajor artillery bombardment to a light infantry skirmish.

  Henri Durand was the type of man that every city needs in order to function. He was a cog, a vital connection between the classes. In his case he was a link between those with money and those without. Or, more accurately, those intent on losing all their money at his gaming tables and those who’d steal it from them if they weren’t throwing it away. However, the criminal classes of Paris weren’t what they once were, or are now; most of them were in the government, thanks to the Revolution. Also, I suppose the moneyed class hadn’t fared well, what with the guillotine and all, but Henri, in the middle, still seemed to know how to make a livre or two. I knew he’d be able to get me out of France if I could pay enough, but that was going to be the problem.

  Henri looked at me for the first time. His thinning hair was plastered down to his head, probably with the same grease that covered the walls. His eyes were never still and life was obviously treating him well as his belt had sunk a little further into the mass of his stomach. He had finished fixing the ugly woman’s hair. They exchanged a few words and I remember thinking her voice was very deep. Then I finally caught on and recognised her, or rather him. Lord Dalrymple was another of Henri’s regulars. I knew that he was usually trying to get Henri’s girls out of their clothes but I hadn’t suspected the reason.

  “What do you think, Ben?” Dalrymple asked as he plumped his bosom rather too enthusiastically.

  “Very nice. Henri, I assume you are helping his Lordship to make his way home?”

  “Yes, Ben. I think I can find another dress. If you have the money?”

  “If you go to my room at…”

  “It will have been confiscated by now. If you do not have the cash on you then there is nothing I can do.”

  Henri turned his back on me and bade farewell to Lord Dalrymple. I was not convinced that his plan would work. French women have a certain way of moving, a provocative swaying of the hips. Dalrymple left the kitchen with all the elegance of a drunken camel. Henri began to ignore me once more and went back into the salon.