Page 24 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
Just then, DuPont walked in with a clap. “There you are, Léon! I’ve been searching all over for you!”
He was taken aback at the sight of the feverish executioner, then more so again when Léon spun around, flung the papers down on the table, and yelled, “Witchcraft?”
“Ah.” Nervous eyes went to Mollard, then slid back to Léon. DuPont stepped forward to calm him with hands on his arms. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What is this?” Léon breathed out furiously. “She’s a girl! Just a girl! This day and age?”
“I know,” replied DuPont. “I knew you’d be upset. Which is why—” angry eyes fell upon Mollard in reprimand “—I had wanted to tell you myself.”
“I never said a word!” Mollard spewed back.
“Then how does he know?”
Léon’s hard-beating heart slammed a note of wariness into him. He couldn’t let them know about Henry. The girl was mute, so she could never have told him. “I-I read the file,” he ventured.
DuPont’s head dropped to the side in surprise, and Mollard’s eyebrows drew tight in suspicion.
“Just a few words,” he rushed out. “But enough. I saw it and I…” He shook his head, raising a shaking hand to his temple as the turmoil built. “Please tell me I’m wrong. Please tell me you’re not going to ask me to burn that girl.”
“No!” DuPont gasped out. “Oh, no, no, nothing like that. Is that what you’re in a flurry about?” He tapped a comforting hand down on Léon’s shoulder and let out a laugh that was allrelief. “No, of course not. What do you think this is? We’re not barbarians.”
“Witchcraft? It doesn’t get much more barbaric than that.”
“I know.” DuPont raised his hands in resignation. “I understand completely how it seems. But have you read what she did?” He picked the papers up and offered them back to Léon.
“Not yet,” said Léon, stepping back with a blush. “I haven’t had time to read it all.”
“Well…” The papers were dropped back to the table. “It’s open and shut, I’m afraid. At least, that’s how it looks from what they’ve given me. There was a boat full of witnesses.”
“Nonsense,” Léon snarled.
“Nonsense or not, the decision’s been made. Her guardian’s pursued every avenue of appeal open to them… I’m afraid it all ends here.”
“But—”
“But nothing. No one’s happy about this, least of all me. Yet justice must be done.” Léon took a breath to argue, and received DuPont’s stern, low, and confiding, “Listen to me. This is more serious than you realise. It’s important that you keep this to yourself.” He looked between Mollard and the general mess that was Léon. “I assume you’ve just found out?”
Léon gave an uncertain nod.
“No one can know about this. Tomorrow, she goes out with the lot of them, head in the basket like the rest.”
“I can’t do that,” Léon protested. “Why would I do that?”
A finger came up to quiet him. “Léon, what do you think will happen if people get wind of this?”
Bright eyed, head raised, “I think they’ll come and break her out andthenjustice will be done.”
“Do you?” The milky blue eyes, incisive, studied him, waiting for his understanding. “Or do you think the command will comedown the line that we’re to do it anyway, and we’re to make the powers that be look good while we’re at it? Do you think it’s more likely we’ll be required to whip up a bit of religious fervour? Make an example of the girl? Turn her into a fitting spectacle for the crowds?”
Léon’s blood glugged thick in his veins at the very suggestion, a dizzy sickness coming all about him.
“Reims is following sharp on the heels of Paris. Things are changing there. We can’t afford to be seen as going against the ideals of the revolution?—”
“But you are!” Léon shouted. “This is no enlightenment thinking! This is the very thing they’re trying to stamp out!”
“And,” DuPont said pointedly, “we—you and I—can’t be seen to be going against court orders right now either. We are in the system, and we work for the system, and we are loyal to whatever commands come to us. No matter who they come from, Léon.” His hand scrunched into Léon’s shoulder, and he moved his face close. “It’s too dangerous a time to stand out. You are an arm of the law and nothing more. You’re going to kill that girl, you’re going to do it quietly without one other soul finding out what she’s in for, and you’re going to make it fast. Then we’re going to pretend it never happened, and get on with our lives.”
Léon’s breath coiled in his throat, and all his insides seemed to melt into themselves. He searched for something to say, but found himself shoved back with the press of Catherine’s papers to his chest. “Read it all,” said DuPont. “Read it well. I know it seems hard to believe, but she’s guilty of something. There were dozens of witnesses.”
