Page 83 of Souvenir Heart

Andre glanced back with an expression of amusement. “Moving parts, Scribbler? Have you ever considered reading Shakespeare’s sonnets? It would vastly improve your store of romantic terminology.” He turned to David, “Marcus assures me his tendresse is not going to be a problem.”

“I found her. Freed her. All that remains is to deliver her safely.”

“Is it all that remains to be done? The lady is young, beautiful, remarkably talented, a widow from a good family. You wouldn’t even have to conceal our rather unusual occupation from her.”

“She thinks we’re mercenaries,” Marcus said.

“A mistake that can easily be corrected. And…” Andre frowned. “Are you so certain that’s what she believes? She seems…less than convinced.”

“She’s made reference to my fee several times…”

“Almost as if she’s taunting you with the lie...”

“Or flirting,” David supplied.

“She’s been through hell. She’s not thinking clearly…”

“She seems quite level-headed to me,” David said, batting at a fly circling his hair. “I don’t know many men who’d have had the nerve to walk out of that place with the chief prosecutor at her side.”

Marcus didn’t either. He tried to think of Margurite’s flaws. “She’s reckless.”

“Is she, though?” David cocked his head. “Seems to me she surveyed the situation, calculated the risks, and acted with remarkable coolness.”

“Much like…” Both men turned their keen gazes on Marcus. “One of us,” Andre finished smoothly.

“Still,” Andre added in a wondering tone, as he drew the nag up in front of a particularly large mound of manure. “Given three such fine specimens of manhood, one has to wonder why she’s set her cap at him. Seems a striking lapse in judgement.”

Marcus handed him a shovel and pointed at the dung. “You should get that. Given your talent for it.”

Sometime later, the cart trundled over the bridge and passed the Conciergerie in silence. After they passed it, all three men agreed in muted tones that they’d seen nothing out of the ordinary. No signs of search teams being sent out or an alarm being raised.

A short distance from the Cock’s Roost, David and Marcus leapt off the back of the cart. They separated then, each taking a different route to the tavern.

“Rags? Rags?” A bearded vendor in a red cap waved a handful of worn fabric in Marcus’s direction.

“Fresh oysters? Fresh oysters?” A woman called, as Marcus passed an array of buckets filled with shellfish and gray water.

“Wet your lips?” A gap-toothed man with a barrel on his back stepped in front of Marcus, holding out a cup chained to the keg.

Marcus wasn’t certain whether it was the way he swung his fake stump towards the man’s face or the aroma of fresh dung rising from his clothes that made the fellow hastily step back.

Catching sight of the sign featuring a bantam rooster sporting a bicorne with a tricolor rosette, he lengthened his stride. Entering the tavern, he saw David leaning against the bar, a glass of wine in his hand. Marcus threaded his way around the crowded tables, taking a seat at the end of a long table at the opposite end of the room. Its surface was littered with half-empty wine bottles and glasses, the seats around it with national guardsmen engaged in heated conversation at one end.

Motioning for a serving maid to bring him a bottle of his own, he pulled out a clay pipe. His fake stump served as a handy excuse to slide closer to the soldiers and request assistance with a light. As the nearest one waved a hand at Marcus’s pungent aroma, and fumbled with his flint box, Marcus listened.

“It’s not fair. They’re always assigning us to the lower cells.”

“I swear, I’m turning into a bat, I spend so much time in the dark. And don’t get me started on the stench. Worse than that fellow there.” He eyed Marcus.

“What I wouldn’t give for a few days on a floor with windows.”

“And women.”

Over the course of the next two hours, Marcus consumed a mediocre cassoulet, nursed a bottle of wine that was well on its way to becoming vinegar, and listened to a litany of complaints about wives who couldn’t prepare a proper veal stew, mothers-in-law who didn’t know when to mind their own business, and officers who couldn’t tell the difference between a treacherous whoreson and a truly honest, hardworking soldier.

He was preparing to ask for the bill when a new group of soldiers pulled up chairs at the table. They sent the serving maid rushing off to fill their orders before Marcus had a chance to attract her attention.

“So, I’ve been on my feet all night, and I take one moment—just a moment to lean against the wall. I mean, it’s dark and the cell doors are all shut tight as you please, and this son of a bitch comes by and starts lecturing me on how I need to straighten up because I’m representing the people,” said a soldier with thinning brown hair.