She had to tell the truth. Messy, disordered, and not easy. She would show the right and the wrong, and try not to flinch.
And if she had to use magic to do it justice, she would.
WOMEN MARCH ON VERSAILLES
TO DEMAND BREAD FROM THE KING
WHAT
ONE
WITNESS
SAW
Six thousand women marched from Paris.
They marched with sickles and pikes, swords and crowbars, scythes and pitchforks,
HOPE and RIGHTEOUS ANGER
that they could not feed their families
They were joined by twenty thousand members of the National Guard, accompanied by Lafayette—threatened by hanging à la lanterne—who demanded the King approve the decrees of the National Assembly and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and return to Paris.
The King agreed.
IN THE MIDST OF OUR VICTORY
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Fear
Murder
Terror
Children killed
Guards slain
Heads paraded on pikes
Demonstrators bathing in the blood of those murdered
WHO ARE WE
WHEN WE MURDER
OUR OWN?
WHEN WE LET HATE
NOT REASON
FUEL
OUR ACTIONS?
There has been much rejoicing
But consider, PATRIOTS, the cost!
VIVE LA RÉVOLUTION
?
29
When Camille came downstairs to check on the pamphlets she had printed last night, she wasn’t sure what she’d find hanging from the lines. She half expected them all to have changed in the early dawn hours, like turned coins losing their magic, becoming the ravings of a girl who’d seen terrible things.
Outside the printing room doors waited the footman Daumier in his dark blue livery coat and white wig, his massive arms crossed over his chest. He smiled impassively when he saw her.
“Bonjour, Daumier.”
“Bonjour, Madame,” he replied. “Mademoiselle Adèle told me you were printing last night. Do you need anything taken to the bookseller?”
“I do have something to go to the printer’s—I need more copies than I can make myself. Would you ask them to set it just as I did and print three hundred copies?”
He bowed. “I’ll wait until it’s ready.”
She went in, pulled back the curtains, and threw open one of the windows. Cold air and the soft patter of rain blew into the room. Was it raining too at Versailles, washing the cobbles clean of blood? The thought unnerved her. Taking down one of the pamphlets, which, despite her fears, was just as it should be, she passed by the open window.
Hunched against one of the courtyard’s yews was a small, dark shape.
In the rain it was hard to tell, but it could be an animal. Or a wet, bedraggled child. The hair on the back of her neck rose as she thought of the little boy.
“Daumier,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, “before you go, look out this window, won’t you? What do you see?”
Obligingly, Daumier did as she asked. “A child, or a small woman about your height, madame.”
Relief washed over her. Not a ghost. “But that’s hardly the place—”
“It is not.” Daumier headed toward the entry, the pamphlet in his hand. “I’ll speak to her. Tell her to move on.”
“Wait! She can shelter here until the rain is over, in the—”
“In the stables?” Daumier suggested.
“That’s perfect, thank you.”
She had just finished taking down the rest of the pamphlets when Daumier appeared in the doorway.
“Madame, the person in the courtyard says she knows you.”
Who could it be? “Then why did she not come to the house?”
“Ashamed, I should say, madame. She is waiting in the foyer if you have time to speak to her.”
* * *
Standing by the door, dripping rain onto the marble tiles, was Odette. She still wore the black clothes Camille had seen her in yesterday at Versailles, but they were now so full of rain and mud that they sagged shapelessly to the floor. Mud coated her shoes, and when she raised her head, a trickle of water poured off the back of her hat. Its dancing plume was crushed.
“Odette!” she said, astonished.
“I am sorry to trouble you—”
“What’s happened? I saw you at Versailles. On the black horse, giving a speech. Everyone was enraptured and then—”
Odette pushed her lank hair from her face. “The horse tried to bolt, but I got him out of the crowd. I’d only borrowed him, of course, but his master made a fuss. He accused me of stealing the horse and pulled me off into the mud.” She showed the side of her face to Camille. An angry red welt, surrounded by an indigo bruise, spread across her cheekbone.
“They hurt you? How dare they—”
“It’s nothing.” Odette looked down, her voice getting smaller. “Worse is that they said they would come after me and I didn’t want to lead them to Flotsam House. Who knows what they would have done to the girls. I wandered