Guardsmen were inside in palace gates too, as were members of the king’s personal guard. The guards of the people faced the guards loyal to the royal family. At the courtyard’s far end, where a cart had been overturned to make a platform for speeches, protestors congregated. A tall woman with cropped hair and burly arms jumped down from the cart—and Camille saw she was not a woman, but a man, dressed in women’s clothing. Someone offered him a bottle of wine. He wandered off as the spectators turned to a young woman clad in a tall black hat and black dress, sitting astride a black horse. A sword swung from a red sash around her waist and a brace of pistols wrapped her hips.
“Lazare, look there—it’s Odette! One of the Lost Girls!”
Gathered around Odette were a few of the others: Claudine with a tricorne over her short hair, Margot the fruit seller in a bright green dress, little Henriette the forger with her pale cloud of curls streaming loose. All of them were watching Odette. The wind unfurled her red hair, blowing it behind her like a banner. Her face was fierce, determined. There was something about her that made people pay attention. And when she had their attention, her speech set them on fire. Though Camille could only hear snatches of what she said, the hot blaze of those words was reflected in the faces of everyone who was listening.
The balloon drifted down.
Closer.
Odette pulled a pistol from her belt and held it over her head. So loud Camille could hear it, she shouted, “Vive la révolution!” and fired her weapon in the air. Odette’s horse reared as the gun’s crack reverberated over the rooftops. People cheered, reaching up to grab her, but Odette kept her seat, smiling. Hands yanked at the horse’s reins and he crow-hopped, shoving people in the crowd. “She needs to get out of there,” Camille worried. “The horse is ready to bolt.”
Odette swung her mount around, and the people fell back. A path opened up. She kicked him forward, the plume in her hat dancing. The crowd in the courtyard had grown denser, but to the side, where Odette had ridden out, a clear space was forming. It widened as people edged away.
In the clearing a man hoisted a pike high in the air. It was heavy, and it wobbled as he tried to raise it. When he finally did, the crowd erupted into wild screams. On its point was a severed head. A woman grabbed it from him and raised it higher. “Vive la révolution!” she shouted. “Vive la France!”
Behind her surged the crowd, hoisting high their scythes and pitchforks. From several of them hung effigies, clothes stuffed with straw. The king and queen in their fine clothes, their crowns tipped drunkenly on top of horsehair wigs. And behind those, there were more: painted faces, blackened fingers. Magicians. Swaying from scythes as if they were real bodies, hanging from lampposts.
Camille’s hands shook so violently she feared she’d drop the spyglass. Instead she swung it away. In the middle of the courtyard lay a little boy. His jacket had come off, and lay beside him, like a blanket he’d tossed off while sleeping. His legs were bent. And his head with its brown curls was covered in blood and dirt. Her stomach heaved. On the boy’s shirt was the dark print of a shoe. Someone had stepped on his broken body.
Camille clenched the edge of the basket as another wave of horror crested over her.
“Camille?” Lazare slipped the glass from her hands. “What is it?”
“A little boy,” she choked. A boy like the ones who had stabled her horses when she’d come to Versailles, running up alongside the carriage and opening the gates. Boys sent on errands, boys called to help with anything in a pinch. Always underfoot, ready to do something for a few coins. Quick, clever, brimming with laughter. Always running.
Long glass to his eye, Lazare looked out at the court, as if he might see something to redeem this terrible loss. “They have lost their minds.”
Then the air boomed.
A sudden whistle—Camille and Lazare stumbled backward as a cannonball shot past the balloon’s gondola. It passed so close that the basket shook. Camille gripped Lazare’s arm, trying to steady herself. The ball that had almost destroyed the basket plunged to earth. It was large and lethal—the hole it could make in the basket would destroy it. If it didn’t kill