Page 68 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
He wet his dry lips. “Yes, I know him.”
A murmur moved around the court at the revelation that Léon, the most respected man in the trial, kept company with a villain like Henry.
“Can you state his name?”
“His name is Henri De Villiers.”
“Henry?” the man asked.
“Henri?” Léon questioned him.
“Henry,” the man corrected. “Were you unaware he’s English?”
“He’s…” A little gasp of air pulled into Léon’s chest, and his eyes caught Henry’s—wary guilt wrapped in an armour of fury. “I did not know that,” Léon said. “He told me he was French. Sohe is a liar too.” He swallowed down the shock and explained, “I first met him five days ago.” How strange it sounded. It felt like a lifetime. Yet, clearly, he didn’t know Henry that well at all.
After a brief whisper passed around the room, the court silenced and listened intently when the next question was asked. “What is your relation to Citizen De Villiers? Is he a friend of yours?”
“No,” Léon replied. “He is the opposite.” Behind all of Henry’s anger, there must still have been a spectre of hope, some kindling deep inside, because Léon watched it go out. He watched, with his own eyes locked on Henry’s, as he grew cold, as all the late sweetness and mutual respect ebbed away, while he spoke on and on and on. “Everything you’ve heard today, all the claims that this man is a thief, that he drugs people, that he is a highwayman and a hardened criminal, all of that is true and more. But the black character you have painted is nothing when compared to his true nature. I have never, in all my time as executioner, come into contact with a more putrid, odious, dangerous mind than that of the man before you.”
The crowd was entranced, and Léon knew exactly how to work them.
“I met Citizen De Villiers at night, in an alleyway—” he waited on the whispers and wondering faces “—when he held a knife to my throat and told me he had abducted my little brother.”
A sea of gasps and exclamations, which he cut straight through. “Many of you know me. But I ask, have you seen little Émile anywhere in Reims these last few days? Have one of you seen the boy since Thursday?”
All were in great agreement that they had not set sight on the poor child in days.
“I have been blackmailed to help this man. He took my brother, and he told me…” And so went the tale. Only this time, Émile never did warm to his kidnapper. He was terrified. Nofood and no decent shelter was given to the boy, and the toy cat certainly wasn’t mentioned. Poor little Émile was stuffed in a dark cupboard for days on end, hands and feet bound.
Léon told them that, being a stand-up citizen and a man of the law, he had refused to help Henry free Catherine from prison. When Léon was seen at the pit, it was because he’d seen Henry that morning and followed him, in a desperate attempt to get his brother back.
“You can imagine my surprise, my… horror—” he surveyed the many eyes glued to him, pausing for utmost effect “—when I saw him pull the girl alive from the pit. I saw the very thing Jaques saw. But this girl, I know she was in prison that morning. Iknowshe was there. I left her locked in her cell myself, and there is only one explanation.” They gaped, waiting for Léon to get to the good part—the words they’d all waited hour upon hour to hear. “Sorcery!”
Léon was ready for the uproar. He waited until they had been silenced, then declared, “I have seen him do things. He talks to animals.” He paused. “And they talk back!” More gasps and mutterings, which Léon spoke over. “His sister, Catherine, she was convicted of witchcraft, was she not?” This being confirmed, both in fact and public opinion, he said, “I do not think she did it.”
That got Henry’s attention, but it was the one time Léon refused to meet his eyes. “I believe he did it all, and I believe he let her take the fall for it. I believe she is an innocent, caught up in his crimes against man and nature. The poor girl…” He shook his head sadly. “She is mute. She cannot defend herself, and when you think, that whole time he let her suffer in prison, when he could have used his magic to take her out at any time.”
He talked on. Reims Prison wasn’t escapable! There had been a crowd that day, guards on every entrance and exit. There simply was no way out but magic or death.
Léon, warming to his task, painted a picture of Henry as blacker than black, a satanic menace, a man who must be locked away from all humanity then disposed of just as quickly as humanly possible.
There was some attempt, in Henry’s defence, to call Léon’s own character into question. Was not his father executed by that very court for sedition?
“Yes,” Léon said sharply. “And for that crime, I took his head myself.”
And wasn’t Léon known to haunt a very low sort of establishment? To associate with the lower classes and keep company with women of ill-repute?
“I hope you do not mean Souveraine Auclair,” he replied indignantly. “For where is she to work but the establishment she inherited from her parents? Has she no right to make a living in an honest trade? And have I no right to see to the running of the business that is soon to be mine?”
Henry’s lips dropped open, and Léon’s heart beat faster than it had all day.
Asked to explain, Léon revealed, “Souveraine and I have been saving money for our engagement all these years. But as of yesterday… I have formally proposed and we are to be married in the spring.”
An approving hum rang round the gallery. Most of them knew Léon and Souveraine, and this news warmed their hearts to such advantage as to set almost everyone on Léon’s side.
He drove onward to victory. “Souveraine is with Émile now, accompanied by another lady of great standing. She left her business, her livelihood, to come to the boy’s aid when we found him in such distress. He needed a woman’s touch—amother’stouch—to nurse him back to good health after what that man did. Souveraine is a saint, and I would ask you to speak more respectfully about my future wife.”
In one fell swoop, Léon had restored Souveraine’s name, had the court eating out of his hand, and there was only one more thing left for him to do. When asked if he had anything else to add, Léon said, “‘Henry’ De Villiers is the most dangerous man I have ever met. Truly, he is in league with the devil himself. I pride myself on fast and humane executions, either by the axe or the guillotine. But if that man should be found guilty by this court, I am of the opinion…” Léon dwelled long on Henry’s beautiful face. Longer than he’d wanted to, because the whole court saw the exchange when he said, “That man needs to be burned alive at the stake.”
