The Silver Blade by Sally Gardner Read Free Book Online Page A

go of the boat to try to save them, the Duke emerged from the water.

    ‘Louis has gone! I had him in my arms and then—’

    By now Yann had another Bluecoat down on the pebbles. Sitting astride him he knocked him unconscious. In the distance came the sound of more feet crunching along the beach towards them. He stood up, tore off his coat, and ran into the sea.

    ‘Get out of the water, Didier! You can’t swim; the weight of your coat will pull you under. Just keep these soldiers off me.’

    Didier did as he was told and waded towards the shore, pulling a knife.

    ‘Get into the boat!’ Yann shouted to the Duke.

    Hugo had woken from his trance and was standing in the boat crying, while the sailor tried his best to stop it from capsizing.

    Yann dived. Instantly the freezing water blinded him. He could feel his skin shrink on his head, the coldness of the water snatching his breath. He came up, then went down again, everything so dark, time running out. His mind was whirling.

    ‘Don’t use your eyes. Your eyes can’t be trusted.’ The words of Tobias the gypsy came to him in the misery of the icy water.

    He could sense the child being buffeted one way and another by the strong current that slowly but surely was sucking him out to sea. Yann grabbed the threads of light. They were losing their living zigzag quality. He knew the child’s life was ebbing, and pulled as hard as he could, coming up for air again as he did so.

    Didier was still battling with the soldiers when the fog cleared sufficiently for them to be distracted by the sight of a child emerging from the sea as if being reeled in on a giant’s fishing line. It was the last image the soldiers saw, for in that moment Didier delivered his final knockout punches.

    Yann climbed into the boat, lifting Louis up and instinctively breathing into him.

    ‘Oh Lord,’ wept the Duke, ‘is he dead?’

    Gradually Yann felt life coming back to the child as Louis began choking and spluttering.

    ‘Quick, a blanket!’ he ordered the sailor, and wrapping Louis up tight gave him to the Duke. He climbed out of the boat into the sea.

    ‘When you arrive in Brighton, ask for Mr Laxton.’

    ‘I owe you my life, sir,’ said the Duke, ‘and that of my son. God bless you.’

    Yann waded back to shore and, picking up his coat, draped it over his soaking clothes; he watched the boat disappear into the fog.

    Didier looked at the prostrate bodies of the sergeant and his men, all knocked out cold, sprawled on the shingle like flotsam and jetsam.

    ‘I wish we could leave silver blades pinned like medals to their coats.’

    ‘Come on, Didier.’

    ‘Don’t you think they deserve them?’

    ‘I think I should never have done such a foolish thing in the first place.’

    ‘Why not?’

    ‘Because it could easily have given us away. Anyway, Tetu has forbidden it.’

    Didier sighed. ‘That’s another story.’

    Yann didn’t reply. He walked wearily towards the cliff steps. Both of them were soaking wet and shivering, water squelching in their shoes. Up on the cliff top Yann whistled for the horses.

    Didier mounted and rode off, imagining Sergeant Berigot’s face when he came to.

    Yann sat for a moment in his saddle looking over the Channel toward the English coast and asked the wind how long it would be until he saw Sido again.

Chapter Six

    A notice had been posted at the front of the theatre of the Circus of Follies. It read:

    BY ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY
the show The Harlequinade will reopen tonight.

    The whole company knew exactly what that meant and how much danger they were all in, for Yann and Didier had not returned from Normandy, and without Mr Margoza there was no Harlequin.

    Basco, the Italian fencing teacher, was at his wits’ end and he had good reason to be. Since the success of The Harlequinade , Citizen Aulard had let it be known that the star of the show was Aldo Basco, the great Italian clown from Naples.

    ‘But I am