The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig Read Free Book Online

Querelle.
    “Condemned,” confirmed Delaroche, rolling the word lovingly on his tongue. “Condemned to an end on the guillotine. They, too, refused to cooperate with the officers of the Republic. Last night, they were taken before a military commission, tried, and”—Delaroche allowed a brief pause, during which time his gaze went meaningfully to the window—“sentenced. To death.”
    Querelle licked his lips, as though they had gone dry. “So fast?”
    “Justice is swift, Monsieur Querelle. Ah, and there we see it in action. Shall we?”
    It was a command rather than an invitation. In the courtyard, the torches burned sullenly in their brackets against the wall. The rain and wind made the flames sizzle and crackle. The flames cast an eerie red glow over the proceedings, like a medieval painter’s rendition of hell, the red light lapping at the raw wood of the scaffold and glinting off the blade that hung so ominously suspended above.
    From the lee of the building, a man stumbled forward, his hands bound behind him just as Querelle’s had been. His head, too, was bare to the elements. The rain slicked his shirt to his skin. From the second-story window, they could hear him shudder, although whether with cold or with fear was unclear. He swayed as the wind buffeted him, his head and shoulders hunched against the stinging rain.
    There was to be no grand state execution, no glorious death for his cause. Any speech made at the scaffold would be lost in the howling rain, blunted against the bored indifference of the detail of soldiers who were his only audience. They were prepared to dispatch the man as any farmer might dispatch vermin caught poaching on his crops, without mercy or regret.
    It wasn’t Picot. Both Picot and Le Bourgeois had been killed the night before. Tried, sentenced, executed, all within the space of an hour. This man was someone else entirely. A thief, a murderer, a rapist. Expendable fodder from Paris’s overflowing prisons.
    Querelle, of course, was not to know that.
    In the rain, in the dark, one bound and hunched man looked much like another. It was necessary, for the sake of the charade, that Querelle think it was one of his comrades, that he see in the arc of the ax the intimation of his own mortality. To be told, at a remove, in simple, whitewashed words that his comrades were dead would not have at all the same effect.
    It all made André sick.
    “Such brave defiance,” purred Delaroche, his chin practically resting on the prisoner’s shoulder. “Such unwavering insolence. But, as you shall see, Monsieur, Madame la Guillotine will not be defied, not for all the bravery in the world.”
    Despite the freezing air gusting through the window, sweat beaded Querelle’s forehead.
    André spoke, his calm voice unnaturally loud in the waiting hush. “There is, of course, still a chance for a pardon.”
    Outside, two soldiers helped the bound man to kneel. With rough efficiency, they settled his head in the hollowed trough designed for just that purpose.
    “A pardon?” croaked Querelle, never taking his eyes from the figure of the man on the block.
    “A pardon,” repeated André quickly, as Delaroche opened his mouth to say something, undoubtedly taunting, pointless, and time-wasting. “I have a pardon with your name on it. All it lacks is the First Consul’s signature.”
    Querelle’s nails scraped against the stone of the sill as his hands opened and closed, seeking some sort of purchase. He cast an agonized glance out the window, at the man kneeling on the scaffold. He looked back, uncertainly, at André.
    “Should you choose to change your mind, Monsieur Fouché himself would personally obtain the First Consul’s signature on your behalf.”
    Delaroche pushed his way forward. “A throat is made to be used, Monsieur. And, if not, it must be … cut.”
    Querelle looked from André to Delaroche and back again. “How do I know you won’t kill me anyway?”
    It was an excellent