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Such a man could not be easily corrupted, and yet, that was what she must do if she were to save the little king.
Alex’s smile faded as the carriage rolled out of sight. It was time she had a serious discussion with the Scarlet Pimpernel.
***
TRISTAN DID NOT RETURNto the Salle des Machines at the Tuileries Palace, where Robespierre and the National Convention were quartered. He had no desire to be sent on another tedious errand by a man whom he had once loved and respected but who, over the course of the last year, had become increasingly fanatic.
Men, women, and children were starving in the streets. France was at war in the Vendée and with Austria. Riots broke out daily in Paris. Robespierre’s solution seemed to be universal: cut off more heads.
Tristan instructed the coachman to drive him to his residence near the Tuileries. He had taken the small apartment to be nearer to the National Convention, but now he wished his family’s lodgings in the Rue Sainte-Avoye hadn’t burned. The shop beneath the residence, with its once loud and busy printing press, had felt as much like home as the tiny upper floor, where he and his family had passed many pleasant evenings in crowded quarters. His current quarters offered him plenty of space but were bare and impersonal.
At one time he’d wanted to forget those memories and cling only to the anger they stirred in him. Now his anger was sated, his lust for vengeance snuffed out. Robespierre seemed to sense this, and Tristan suspected his supervisor kept him busy with trivialities to prevent him from attending sessions of the National Convention.
After all, what did it matter what play the People’s Theater performed when half of the country would freeze to death in a few short weeks or months? What difference did it make which portrait a café owner hung in his establishment? These were but diversions and details that distracted from the very real problems facing the country—problems Robespierre and the Convention seemed unable to solve.
Upon arriving at his residence, Tristan sent the coach back to the Tuileries and watched it depart. When the coachman was out of sight, he entered the building housing his apartment and walked straight out the back door, without stopping in his rooms. From there he walked the short distance to the Palais-Royal.
The day was cold and overcast, and the weather matched his mood perfectly. This morning he’d barely stepped foot in the Tuileries before Robespierre had sent him to the Boulevard du Temple and the People’s Theater. It had further annoyed him to be challenged by an actress, no less, and an English one at that. The woman must have a death wish to express her disapproval of the dictates of the National Convention so openly. Tristan could have reported her, and she would be in the Conciergerie before the end of the day.
He would have reported her too, if he was not about to do something far worse than merely disapprove of the new government’s policies. Tristan might be many things, but he was not a hypocrite.
He entered the café and took a seat at a small round table toward the back. One glance around him and he knew the man he sought had not yet arrived. The café was brightly lit with crystal chandeliers whose lights reflected off the many mirrors lining one wall. Gilded moldings separated the mirrors and ran along the edge of the ceiling as well. Paintings of scenes from mythology lined the walls where mirrors did not.
Tristan indulged himself, ordering coffee with chocolate and sat back, closing his eyes. He was tired. He had not slept well since this business had begun, and he was anxious to complete it. He was weary of deception and intrigue. He was only a man, and lately he felt as though he carried the weight of the entire nation on his back.
Eyes closed, he tried to clear his mind of political intrigue—of Dantonists, Girondists, Jacobins, and Montagnards. Instead, the vision that came to him was that of Citoyenne Martin’s lovely green eyes. They were her best feature, and he would not have been a man if he had not noticed them. Nor would he have been a man had he not noticed the way her thin Roman garb clung to her legs and revealed the shape of her small but firm breasts. She was not a beautiful woman. Her jaw was too sharp, her body too angular. She had none of the roundness embodied in the nymphs and goddesses painted in the scenes from mythology surrounding him.
She was rather like a sprite or a fairy, her green eyes sparkling and bent on mischief.
“Have you been waiting long?” a man’s voice asked.
Tristan opened his eyes and looked into the face of the man he knew only as Citoyen Allié. Tristan did not believe this was the man’s real name.Alliémeantallyand that was too convenient to be a coincidence. Tristan also suspected the man took some pains to disguise his true appearance. He wore his hat pulled low, his collar high, and his nose and cheeks did not look quite right. Theatrical makeup, perhaps? Or perhaps the shadows from his hat, which he had not removed upon entering the café, only gave the appearance of irregular features.
“Not long, citoyen.” Tristan gestured to the chair opposite. The waiter appeared with Tristan’s coffee, and inquired as to what Allié would drink. The man ordered coffee, plain. He always ordered the same, and never had Tristan seen him drink it.
When the server was gone, Allié leaned forward. “Do you have the pamphlets you mentioned to me when last we spoke? I am eager to read more of these republican tracts.”
The words were meant for anyone listening to them.Pamphletswas but code for letters Tristan had copied wherein Robespierre advocated for the arrest and execution of political enemies and formally condoned several massacres of loyalists in the provinces.
“The pamphlets are close at hand,” Tristan said. Part of the reason he had not slept the night before was that he was still undecided as to whether or not to give the letters to this Allié and officially pull the trigger, as it were, and begin Robespierre’s downfall.
“You are having second thoughts?” Allié asked, his tone suggesting this was to be expected.
“I am not eager to become a traitor.” He whispered the last word, aware of the danger he faced using such terms in public.
“A traitor to whom?” Allié asked, lifting his chin so Tristan might see the intensity of his gaze. His eyes were blue, quite intelligent, and very perceptive. “To your country or your superior? I think you must choose your allegiance.”
“There was a time they were one and the same.”
“And that time is no more. Robespierre”—he lowered his voice—“orders the deaths of hundreds on suspicion alone. If any dares to oppose him, that man finds himself on the scaffold. Look at the Girondists.”
The Girondists had been rivals of the more radical wing of the Jacobins to which Robespierre belonged. When they fell from favor, twenty-two of them had been condemned. The execution of over two dozen men took only a little over a half an hour.
“Who is next on Robespierre’s list? Dare any man stand in his way? Even the king was not so much a tyrant.”
This was true, although Tristan hated the late king and theancien régimefor its excesses and sins. But the new government should not have been about personal vendetta, even if Tristan’s support had sprouted from a very personal desire for revenge. Robespierre spoke of equality even while he sought more and more power and destroyed anyone who stood in his way.
“You are loyal, and that is a trait to be admired,” Allié said, lowering his head so his eyes were no longer visible. “But loyalty becomes an evil when it overlooks murder and oppression. Give me the papers”—he held out a gloved hand—“and declare yourself on the side of liberty, equality, and fraternity.”
