Page 16 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
Memorize everything about this night,I think.
But aloud, I say, “Perhaps I shall doze as well. We’ll be two birds nestled together in a pretty cage.”
“That somehow sounds both picturesque and awful,” Amélie teases.
I laugh. “It’s late. My literary prowess wanes in the evening.”
“Well, dreadful metaphor or not, I love you, my handsome Venetian bird.” She nuzzles against me, fitting her head perfectly against my shoulder and the crook of my neck.
Within minutes, Amélie is asleep. I hold her and feel the gentle rise and fall of her body as I watch the dark landscape of the countryside fly by. At some point, I nod off as well, and when I wake, cobblestones and glowing streetlamps greet me.
“My love,” I say softly. “We have arrived in Paris.”
Amélie blinks the slumber from her eyes and presses herself to the window. “What a beauty the city is,” she says as the river Seine comes into view. The streets beyond it glimmer as if lit from within. No wonder Paris is sometimes called La Ville Lumière.
Our carriage continues along the riverfront, past quiet bakeries and empty street corners. It seems for once that Paris is at peace, the recent calls for the king’s head and the stirrings of revolutionary fervor swept clean from the cobblestones for tonight.
The quietude lowers my guard, and the coachman’s as well, for we do not see the mob in the shadows until torches flare up in front of the horses, and bayonets and muskets surround the carriage.
Amélie jumps back from the windows.
“Liberté, égalité, fraternité, ou la mort!”the revolutionaries shout.
The last word—death—shakes me into action.
“Don’t move, and don’t say a word,” I tell Amélie.
I scoot to the window. “Scuxéme,” I say in Venetian. “We are only passing through on our way home…”
For a moment, the mob outside is confused by the fact that I’m speaking another language. Then the leader—a square-jawed youth with a bayonet clutched in one hand—steps forward and spits. “We demand the heads of the nobility, who treat the people like garbage and spend their taxes on finery and cakes.”
Amélie’s grip on my hand is so tight her nails draw blood. Still, I do not ask her to let go.
I usually speak perfect French, but I purposefully inflect it now with a heavy Venetian accent as I again address our captors. “S’il vous plaît,we are foreigners. We have no quarrel with you and only wish to pass through to return to our country.”
The leader considers this and consults with two others in the mob. Muskets aimed, they question the coachman and thefootman, who both babble in fright in Venetian, confirming my claims of not being French.
Perhaps there is a chance we will be allowed to go on our way.
Tears quiver down Amélie’s cheeks. There is so much she wants to say—I can see it in her eyes—but she presses her lips together and remains quiet as I instructed. Bless my sweet, dear Amélie.
The mob leader steps back up to the carriage window. “Tell your coachman to take the next street out of the city. If we see you again, we will not be so lenient.”
“Grasie,” I say in Venetian. Then, “Merci beaucoup.”
The coachman yells at the horses to move. Amélie collapses in my arms and sobs. “I thought that was the end. I thought they would take us and we would never see each other again.”
“No, my love,” I say, clutching her shaking frame to mine. “I will never allow us to be parted.”
The horses have gone only a few paces, though, when the mob roars and stops the carriage again. I look out the window in panic.
The leader has been shoved aside. His revolutionaries want the blood of the nobility, and they do not care whether it’s French or Venetian.
A door is wrenched open. Angry, ravenous hands tear at Amélie’s gown and grab her arms.
“Matteo!” she shrieks.
I wrap myself around her waist to keep her inside. But a musket clubs the side of my head and knocks me back.
