The Pimpernel Plot

Prologue

The city square was utterly silent as the crowd waited in tense, almost reverential anticipation. The only sounds that broke the stillness were the praying of the man atop the wooden platform, the sobbing of his wife at the bottom of the steps, and the squeaking of the pulley as the blade was slowly raised. The man’s prayer was rudely interrupted as he was seized and forced down to his knees, his head jammed into position. The lever was tripped, there was a brief scraping sound as the blade descended swiftly and then a duller sound, not unlike that of an axe sinking into wood. The man’s head fell into the wicker basket and the crowd roared its approval.

Joseph Ignace Guillotin’s device, proposed in the Assembly by the venerable physician as a “merciful” method of execution, had not been in use for more than a few months, but its blade had already been thoroughly tempered in the blood of the victims of the Revolution. The mob had stormed the Tuileries and the Swiss Guards, who had been ordered to cease firing by the king, were massacred. Louis XVI was held prisoner with his family in the old house of the Knights Templars and the provisional government was in the hands of Georges Jacques Danton of the Cordeliers. Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, whose Declaration of the Rights of Man had been hailed and accepted by the National Assembly as the embodiment of the principles of [[“Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite,”]] had been branded a traitor and had fled for his life to Austria. The bloody September Massacres, in which over one thousand aristocrats would be sacrificed on the altar of the new regime, were underway. The rest of Europe would be deeply shocked at the events in Paris, at Versailles, in Lyons, Rheims, Meaux, and Orleans; however, they were just a prelude to the excesses of the Jacobins under Robespierre’s Reign of Terror.

With glazed eyes, Alex Corderro watched the man’s decapitated body being dragged off the guillotine. The executioner paused only long enough to give the blade a quick wipe with a red-stained rag before he motioned for the next victim to be brought up. The dead man’s wife was frogmarched up the steps. She was incapable of standing and had to be held up for the crowd’s inspection. Once again, the mob fell into an eerie silence. A hungry silence. The woman swayed unsteadily and, for a moment, her eyes came into focus. She saw her husband’s head being dumped out of the wicker basket and she doubled over, vomiting upon the wooden platform. It was all Alex could do to keep himself from doing likewise. He had thought that he would be prepared for this, but it was nothing like what he had imagined. This was a far cry from Sidney Carton’s romantic last hurrah in Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. This was wholesale slaughter and Alex Corderro could not bear to watch it any longer. The squeaking of the pulley was like fingernails scraping on a blackboard and it made him shiver. It would have been, he thought, a far, far better thing had he stayed home where he belonged, in the 27th century, where such things were only to be read about in books and gleaned from information retrieval systems, where their graphic reality did not intrude upon the senses with all the power of a butcher’s maul.

Alex was a private in the Temporal Corps. This was his first hitch to be served in Minus Time. France’s army, the most efficient and progressive fighting force in all of Europe at the Revolution’s start, was in a sad state of decay. The purchase of commissions had been abolished and most of the officers, members of the now-despised aristocratic class, had fled the country. The Assembly was anxious to rebuild the army, since war seemed imminent, and a nationwide call for volunteers went out, which call would soon be replaced by an order for the conscription of all single men between the ages of 18 and 40. This order was to provide, in a few short years, a mighty army for Napoleon. Alex was a double volunteer. He had volunteered for enlistment in the 27th century and, after training and implant education, he had been clocked out to the late 1700s, to volunteer again for service in the Revolutionary Army. It had been determined by the Referee Corps that this would be the most effective way to infiltrate soldiers of the Temporal Corps into the French Army, for service in the War of the First Coalition.

Alex didn’t know why he was going to be fighting, why he was about to be placed into the front ranks of the war against Austria and Prussia. Soldiers were never told such things. He knew only that two major powers in the 27th century had submitted yet another grievance to the extranational Referee Corps for arbitration and that temporal units from both sides had been clocked out to the past to fight a “war on paper” on a battleground of history. To those who determined the outcome, it would be a “war on paper.” To the Referees, Alex would be just another factor in the point spread. For Alex, it would be a very real war; a war in which the odds of his survival would be very, very low. It was something he had considered when he had enlisted, but at the time he had dismissed the possibility of his being killed as quite unlikely. After all, he was a modern man, demonstrably superior to these primitives. He had thought that it would be a grand adventure. Now he found that he no longer felt that way.

Paris was not the romantic place he had imagined it to be. He had seen the violence in the streets; he had watched aristocrats being wheeled to the guillotine in parades of tumbrels as the citoyens and citoyennes ran alongside the carts, jeering at the condemned and pelting them with refuse. He had seen the blade descend over and over and he had watched the old knitting women, the tricotteuses, trying to clamber up onto the platform to get locks of hair from the decapitated heads as souvenirs. He had seen the children jump up and down and clap their hands with glee as the wicker baskets reaped their grisly harvest. He had seen too much.

Feeling numb, he turned away and began to push through the mob, receiving not a few shoves in return as people angrily repulsed him for blocking their view of the proceedings. Alex heard the dull sound of the blade severing the woman’s head and cringed, redoubling his efforts to fight his way free of the crowd. He fought his way clear, stumbling away from the Place de la Revolution to wander aimlessly through the city streets in a state of shock. War was something he could handle. This callous, systematic killing, on the other hand, this chopping off of heads methodically, like the slicing of so many stalks of celery, was more than he could take. It brought back an image from his survival training, a graphic image of his drill instructor showing the boots how to kill a chicken by biting down upon its neck and giving a slight twist, the head coming off the chicken and still being held in the drill instructor’s teeth as he tossed the wildly flapping, thrashing body of the bird into their midst, spattering them with blood and causing several of the boots to faint. As he swayed through the streets of Paris like a drunkard, Corderro imagined the executioner biting off the heads of the aristocrats and dumping their bodies off the platform and into the crowd until the streets were choked with headless corpses lurching wildly about, knocking into walls and splashing citizens with blood.

He lost track of time. It was growing late and only the increasing flow of people past him told him that the gory festivities had ended for the day and that the mass exodus from the square had begun. The entertainment was not yet finished for the day however. There was still more sport ahead, perhaps not as dramatic, but equally significant for the participants. He was caught up in the current of the crowd and carried to the West Barricade, like a paper ship floating in a river. There, the portly Sergeant Bibot of the Revolutionary Army conducted the evening’s entertainment.

Each afternoon and evening, just before the gates closed for the night, a parade of market carts lined up to leave the city, bound for farms in the outlying districts. Each afternoon and evening, desperate aristocrats who had fled their homes to go into hiding in some corner of the city tried to steal out of Paris in order to escape the wrath of the Republic. Seeking to evade the clutches of the Committee of Public Safety and the blood-thirsty public prosecutor, Citoyen Fouquier-Tinville, they tried to sneak out past alert soldiers such as Sergeant Bibot and flee the country to find safe haven in England, Austria, or Prussia. Their pathetic ruses seldom worked. Though they tried to disguise themselves as beggars, merchants, farmers, men dressing up as women and women dressing up as men, their lack of experience in such subterfuges invariably resulted in their apprehension. They were arrested and marched off to confinement, to await their appearance before the public prosecutor, which without exception was followed by a humiliating ride through the streets of Paris in the two-wheeled tumbrels and a short walk up a flight of wooden steps into the waiting arms of Madame la Guillotine. To the once-proud aristocrats who tried to sneak out through the city gates, it was a final, desperate gamble. To the citizens of the Republic who thronged to the barricades to watch their efforts, it was a delightful game.

Sergeant Bibot was a favorite of the crowd. He had a macabre sense of theatre, which he applied with great panache to his duties at the city gate. Keenly observant and well familiar with the faces of many aristocrats, Bibot was proud of the fact that he had personally sent over fifty Royalists to the guillotine. He basked in the attention of the onlookers, playing to his audience as he conducted his inspections prior to passing people through the gate. He was a showman with a sadistic sense of humor. If he spotted a disguised aristo, he would draw the process out, teasing his victim, allowing him to think that he would be passed through before dashing all his hopes in a flamboyant unmasking. The crowd loved every bit of it. Sometimes, if he was in an especially playful mood, Sergeant Bibot would actually pass an aristo through the gate, giving him a short head start before sending some of his men to catch him and bring him back, dragged kicking and screaming through the city gate and to his doom. On such occasions, the crowd would always cheer him and he could climb up on his ever-present empty cask of wine, remove his hat, and take a bow.

Each night, after the gates were closed, Sergeant Bibot would remain to smoke his clay pipe and drink the wine that his admirers brought him as he regaled them with anecdotes concerning his illustrious career. He was particularly fond of telling them the story of the day that Citizen Danton had personally come to watch him discharge his duties. He had unmasked six ci-devant aristocrats that day and the Minister of Justice had personally commended him for the zeal with which he served the people.

Corderro found himself propelled along by the crowd until he was standing by the West Barricade, where a sizable throng had already gathered to watch Sergeant Bibot put on his show. A large and heavy man with a florid face and bristling moustaches, Bibot was squeezed into his ill-fitting uniform like ten pounds of flour packed into a five-pound sack. A long line of carts and pedestrians was already cued up, held back by Bibot’s men until such time as the audience was built up to a suitable size. There was a great feeling of camaraderie and anticipation in the air as Sergeant Bibot strutted to his post taking time to pause so that he could exchange pleasantries with some of his regular observers, be slapped upon the back and, he hoped, admired by the young women m the crowd, whom he greeted with exaggerated winks and blown kisses. Corderro thought that he was going to be sick. He felt all wound up inside and his skin was clammy. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were shaking.

Sergeant Bibot began to have the people brought up, one at a time, so that he could examine them and pass them through. The people in the crowd called out encouragement and suggestions.

“There, that one! That beard looks false! Give it a good, hard yank, Sergeant Bibot!”

“Why don’t you come here and yank it, you miserable son of a Royalist bootlicker!” shouted the owner of the beard, a burly farmer.

“I’ll do more than yank your phony beard, you bastard!” yelled the first man as he ran forward and tried to climb up on the cart, only to be pulled away at the last minute by Bibot’s soldiers.

“Peace, Citizen!” cried Sergeant Bibot, melodramatically holding up his hand. “All will be settled momentarily!” Turning to the farmer, Sergeant Bibot smiled pleasantly, wished him a good day and asked him to excuse the zeal of the good citizen who was only anxious that ci-devant aristocrats be brought to justice. “Purely as a matter of form,” said Sergeant Bibot, “would you consent to showing me your hands?”

The farmer grunted and held out his hands, turning them from palms down to palms up.

“ Merci,” said Sergeant Bibot. “These are the roughened, calloused hands of a working man,” he said to the crowd. “No aristo would have hands such as these. And the beard appears to be quite genuine,” he added for good measure. “A fine, luxuriant growth it is, to boot!”

He clapped the grinning farmer on the back and passed him through as the crowd applauded. The process continued as Bibot intently examined everyone who sought egress through the gate, making a show of it and striving to entertain those he examined as well as the people in the crowd.

A large and heavy wagon filled with wine casks came up next and Bibot made a great show of opening each cask and checking to see if anyone was concealed inside. His examination revealed no concealed aristocrats and Bibot passed the wagon through. Several others he allowed to pass with only the most cursory inspection, as the drivers were known to him having regularly passed through his gate twice a day on their way to and from the city. An undercurrent of hostility swept through the crowd as an elegant coach drew up and stopped at Sergeant Bibot’s post.

Surely, no aristocrat would be so great a fool as to attempt leaving Paris so conspicuously. Several of the people in the crowd, close enough to see inside the coach, recognized one of its occupants and word soon spread throughout the mob that this was no person worthy of derision, but the very beautiful and famous Marguerite St. Just, that celebrated actress of the Comedie Francaise, whose brother, Armand St. Just, was a leading figure of the Revolution and a member of the Committee of Public Safety.

Citoyenne St. Just had recently caused a bit of a scandal when she married that wealthy English baronet, Sir Percy Blakeney, thus becoming Lady Blakeney, but no one could accuse her of being an aristocrat, much less a Royalist. The popular actress was well known as an ardent Republican and a believer in equality of birth. “Inequality of fortune,” she was fond of saying, “is merely an untoward accident. The only inequality I recognize and will admit to is inequality of talent.” As a result of this belief, her charming salon in the Rue Richelieu had been reserved for originality and intellect, for wit and brilliance. She had entertained members of the theatrical profession, well-known writers and famous philosophes, and the occasional foreign dignitary, which was how she had met Sir Percy Blakeney.

It came as quite a shock to those within her circle when she married Blakeney. They all thought that he was quite beneath her, intellectually speaking. A prominent figure in fashionable European society, he was the son of the late Sir Algernon Blakeney, whose wife had succumbed to imbecility. The elder Blakeney took his stricken wife abroad and there his son was raised and educated. When Algernon Blakeney died, shortly following the death of his wife, Percy inherited a considerable fortune, which allowed him to travel abroad extensively before returning to his native England. He had cultivated his tastes for fashion and the finer, more expensive things in life. A pleasant fellow with a sophomoric sense of humor, Blakeney was a fashion plate and a bon vivant, but he made no pretense to being an intellectual. It would have been ludicrous, since he was hopelessly dull and generally thought to be a fool. He was totally enraptured with his wife and seemed perfectly content with remaining in the background and basking in her glow. Marguerite’s friends were all at a loss to understand why she had married him, unless his slavish devotion pleased her. However, though Marguerite St. Just might have been found wanting in her abilities to select a fitting husband, she could not be faulted for her politics. While the sight of Blakeney at the window of the coach provoked some unfavorable comments and some jeers, the appearance of his wife beside him was greeted with a scattering of applause.

“I say there,” Blakeney said in perfect, if accented, French, “what seems to be the difficulty, Sergeant? Why this tedious delay?”

Bibot appraised him with obvious distaste. The man was both rich and English, which were two counts against him from the start, but when he saw the well-known actress, his manner changed and he removed his hat and gave a little bow.

“Your pardon, Citoyenne,” said Bibot, totally ignoring Blakeney, “but everyone must be passed through one at a time, so that I may prevent the escape of any aristocratic enemies of the Republic.”

“Aristocratic enemies?” said Blakeney. “Good Lord! Does this mean that we are to be detained?”

Bibot glanced at Blakeney the way a fastidious cook might look upon a cockroach discovered in her kitchen. “Your wife, monsieur, is a well-known friend of the Republic and you, though an aristocrat, are obviously English, which assures your safety, at least for the time being.”

“Oh, well, thank the Lord for that,” said Blakeney, fluttering a lace handkerchief before his nose. “Then we shall be allowed to pass?”

“ I see no reason why you should not be-”

At that moment, a captain came galloping up to Sergeant Bibot, scattering all those in his way. His slightly skittish horse caused Bibot to back off some steps to stand before the Blakeneys’ coach.

“Has a cart gone through?” the captain demanded.

“I have passed through several carts,” Bibot began.

“A cart… a wagon… Loaded with wine casks…”

Bibot frowned. “Yes, there was one, driven by an old wine merchant and his son. But I examined each and every cask and-”

“You fool!” cried the captain. “You checked the empty wine casks, but did you examine the wagon itself?”

“Why, no…” said Bibot, nervously.

“Idiot! That wagon concealed the Duc de Chalis and his children! They’ve managed to escape, thanks to you!”

I say there, Sergeant,” Sir Percy said, stepping down from the coach, “are we to be allowed to pass or-”

“How long ago did they go through?” the captain said

“Why, only a short while-” said Bibot.

“Then there may yet be time to stop them! If they escape, Sergeant, you shall pay for this with your head! You had best pray that I can catch them!”

No, thought Corderro, not children! They can’t guillotine innocent children! Forgetting his strict orders not to interfere, Corderro leaped out in front of the horse just as the captain set spurs to the animal’s flanks. Eyes rolling, the horse reared and threw the captain, who knocked Blakeney to the ground as he fell. Corderro smashed a hard right into Sergeant Bibot’s face and at the same time wrenched the sergeant’s pistol from his waistband. He spun around, but the fallen captain had managed to get his own pistol out. Still, Corderro was quicker and he fired first, sending a ball into the captain’s chest. The captain fired as well, but instead of shooting Corderro, the ball went through the coach and struck Lady Blakeney.

The shots frightened the horses and they bolted. Corderro leaped up on the sideboard of the coach and the runaway horses hurtled through the city gate. Bibot’s men raised their muskets and fired at the coach, hitting Corderro several times. He managed to get the door of the coach open and threw himself inside, where he collapsed onto the floor of the coach and lost consciousness.

The crowd at the gate had panicked at the shots and they scattered, fleeing in all directions. The army captain lay dead in the middle of the street with a bullet through his heart. Clutching at his chest and coughing, Blakeney stumbled weakly through the gate in a vain attempt to follow his coach. He managed about one hundred yards before he sank down to his knees at the side of the road, retching blood. The hooves of the captain’s rearing horse had crushed his chest and with every step, his splintered ribs hastened the inevitable. Blakeney spoke his wife’s name and collapsed into a ditch. His eyes glazed over. The Scarlet Pimpernel was dead.