Page 13 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
And he had more important things to do. Fast.
Léon turned briskly to depart, but his boots scuffed to a halt when Mollard said, “Keys.”
Cheek twitching, Léon threw them down on the desk with a clatter, then swept out of the jail.
He made straight for Souveraine’s inn for the second time that morning. He went around the back this time, down a narrow and stinking alley, and threw a stone up at what he knew to be her bedroom window. At this hour, she would ordinarily be stocking up on her precious few hours of sleep, but today it took only that one stone before the casement flew open, and her worried eyes found his.
With one scan of Léon, she understood. “He wouldn't give them to you?”
“Please. I need… several keys. If I’m to trick him, I need… Please? Any you can spare.”
She breathed his name out on a frustrated breath, but with all the purpose and kindness that he was accustomed to, she ran about unlocking everything she could afford to, and possibly more than she should have. Every window latch was eased, her wardrobes were opened, her inn’s latrine was unlocked and now available to all, and she soon appeared at the back door of her establishment. With a pre-emptive look down the silent and lonely alley, she pressed the ring of keys into Léon’s hand, quickly and discreetly. “Will you let me come?”
“No.”
Which she had known would be the answer. So she pleaded, “Be careful. If you’re not back this evening, I will tell DuPont to come find you.”
“Please do. I’ll try to hold that over him. Souveraine…” He gripped her hands, looked into her faithful, too-loving eyes, then pulled her close, placing a chaste kiss on her cheek. The church clock rang out the hour of eleven, and they locked eyes.
“Run.”
He gave a nod, and was gone, stumbling down the alley as the frenzy of emotion from his very long night and morning crept up on him. What he would have given to step back in time to one day earlier, when he would have let Émile witness Marie’s death. When he would have kept him by his side unrelentingly. When he would have watched him so, so carefully… And now what was happening to him?
Bleary-eyed, he trod on towards the forest, images flashing of little Émile’s bruised skin, the sight of his terrified face, the sound of his cries, screaming for Léon to come and save him as that terrible man did whatever he might have been doing to the poor, defenceless child.
9
THE POOR, DEFENCELESS CHILD
‘Little’ Émile sat on a chair that was much too short for his long legs, but still he kicked them, and gleefully too. He shoved another piece of cake into his mouth, this laden with more jam and cream than the last delivery, which is to say, it was rather a lot all in one go. And over and around his not-so-dainty treat, he spilled crumbs down himself and onto the table when he poorly enunciated, “I don’t know why you don’t just ask him.”
Though it was difficult to decipher, Henry knew what he’d said, because he’d said it half a dozen times or more already, mostly with an empty mouth. But Henry wasn’t about to repeat himself. “Honey?”
“Yes.”
Henry tapped the little glass jar onto the wooden table, placed long fingers on his hips, and continued his pace of the small cabin. Reaching out his golden fob watch, he saw the seconds tick over to eleven-fifty—ten minutes to go.
The metal lid of the honey jar grated on his nerves just as it grated on the glass, turned slowly by sticky fingers. “Léon’s the best. He helps everybody.”
“Is that what you call helping people?” Henry half-joked, for the whole idea was a sort of ludicrous jest to him. The idea that the executioner, beautiful-looking as he was, was somehow a paragon of virtue. The man who took heads for money, some kind of local hero. But Henry had to hand the headsman that one small credit—his brother loved him well, so he was, at least, presumably, less of a filthy barbarian in his home than he was in the town square. Or in an alley on the way home from the pub.
Henry glanced at his wet boots in front of the open fire, still sopping from the hour he’d spent washing them.
It was entirely possible, of course, that the child had simply been misled about his brother, through lack of education, experience, and or intellect.
Yes, that, Henry easily concluded, was probably it.
“I have to go now,” he said, shoving some biscuits towards the boy. “Do you remember what we talked about?”
Émile gave a small nod. “I’m not to make a sound, even if?—”
“Especiallyif…” Henry corrected.
“Especiallyif it’s Léon. I’m to stay quiet, and you’ll take me back to him five golds richer.”
“Good boy.” Henry scanned the benches and beds of the tiny, rundown, dusty cottage. “You have everything you need here. I’ll be a short time. And when I return, I’ll take you home.”
“But I still don’t understand why?—”
